


The Gang Hangs Out Under the Bleachers

by Atrokiss



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Humor, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Eating Disorders, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, High School, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Inappropriate Humor, Lesbian Character, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Not Canon Compliant, Past Relationship(s), Recreational Drug Use, Sexual Humor, Slow Burn, i tried to make it as realistic as possible but some parts are obviously not canon, if u get what im sayin, lesbian dee is a wonderful thing, so slow that it goes almost nowhere, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-11
Updated: 2017-09-26
Packaged: 2018-12-26 08:20:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 25,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12055014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atrokiss/pseuds/Atrokiss
Summary: The gang, but in highschool with more angst.





	1. Stolen Cigarettes and A Promise

**Author's Note:**

> I made this playlist which you can listen to [here ](https://open.spotify.com/user/sydneykilgore325/playlist/4tAaC9HFLtuNKV7VSQ72Zt) and it inspired this fic. This might be trash but I really love the idea of a teenager Mac trying to cope with his really gay feelings for Dennis. Also Dee and Charlie being (un)likely best friends is a must, obviously. 
> 
> Also heavily inspired by [this](https://beachdeath.tumblr.com/post/158258922468/like-one-day-youre-meeting-this-kid-under-the) text post which sent me spiralling headfirst into a deep depression :)

A brick wall peaks out from behind a concrete finish. There's scrawny shoulder blades digging into the stone surface and trembling hands that were trying to conform to the stolen ciggarette hanging from his fingers. Mac tried to replicate the hand rested on the knee of the guy sitting next to him, to inhale and exhale just like him. He sputtered coughed everytime, wiping his watering eyes on the ripped neckline of his tee shirt. 

The guy next to him leaned his head back against the wall, his knee bounced the hand that held the ciggarette and he clenched his jaw when he exhaled, tilting his head up so he could watch the smoke rise up and dissipate into the autumn air. Dennis fiddled with the rolled up sleeves of his button down shirt that was too big for him like maybe he'd been borrowing it from his dad. He ran his free hand through neatly cropped curls on top of his head, trying to distract himself as much as possible from the kid next to him who can't stop staring down at him.

"Need something?" Dennis asked around the ciggarette in his mouth.

"Ah, no- nope everything's uh," Mac stuttered, silently cursing himself for being so obvious. "I'm fine."

"Don't care, didn't ask" he said coldly, flicking the cherry of the butt on the pavement. "I just need you for the smokes, pal." He took a drag from the ciggarette one more time before a familiar voice lifted his eyes from the pavement.

"What the hell are you doing?" Dee asked, stopped in her tracks and adjusting the shoulder strap of her backpack. 

Mac observed the two from the side, the unsmoked ciggarette he held down by his legs has burned past the filter and at this point he only kept it to look cool. Dennis's sister, Dee, looked Mac up and down. Her piercing blue eyes casted judgement on the kid with his greasy hair and dirty shirt that was torn by the sleeves. She would've come across preppy and cool in comparison if it wasn't for the back brace clamoring with her every move. 

"You smoke now?" Dee asked, shoulders slumping in defeat when Dennis only rolled his eyes and scoffed. "This kid is scum, Dennis, c'mon what is this. You're literally sitting in trash right now." She gestured to the dumpster next to them, the one Mac had been kicking rocks and beer cans at just to hear the aluminum ring.   


Dennis got up, snuffing out his ciggarette as he pulled himself up using the wall as support. He hung back for just a moment as his sister started to walk away and looked over at Mac with eyes that were just a little too sad and just a little too empty. He opened his mouth a little, breaking the eye contact to look at the ground and scratch at his ear. Mac just stood there amd waited for him to say his piece, tell him off like his sister, call him white trash, whatever. 

Mac heard all of these things before he even spoke and when Dennis finally did look back up, he just doesn't say any of it. Instead he told him to meet him under the bleachers next time because maybe there's more privacy or maybe it's more convenient, Mac doesn't know. He only heared Dennis telling him he wanted to do this again, that he wanted to see him again.

"Okay cool," Mac said, already planning how he'd find more ciggarettes. 

"And bring the good shit, I'm done with the ah-" he waved his hand towards the ground covered in ashes. "The tobacco, I'm over it you know? I'd just rather not get cancer before I'm twenty five, so I want weed next time." He was overtly confident with his demand, expecting Mac would just comply with whatever he said.   


Mac hated how willing he was. How easily he agreed to find drugs for this kid he barely knew. He just wanted some company, to just have a friend or two maybe. Charlie was good fun but there was something about this guy that made him feel infinitely cooler.   


"Yeah, no problem," Mac said to his shoes, rocking on the balls of his heals as he listened to Dennis walk away. He ripped his eyes from the ground toward the sky, swearing when he realized he had no idea where he would even get the weed.

He should probably be offended that Dennis just assumed he had some, that he was just some burn out junky with nothing better to do than get high under the bleachers with him. He could be that if Dennis wanted, he supposed. He'd play that part if it meant he could be near him one more time. 

"Shit, shit, shit," he said from under his breath, making his way from the ally they were sitting in towards the school just a block or two away. He headed past the school gates, bracing against the wind that picked up and sent goosebumps racing across his arms and neck.

Another three blocks later and he's at Charlie's door, bouncing on his feet and cursing at the kid to hurry up and let him in. Charlie appeared in the doorway, an oversized sweatshirt hanging past his wrists. His hair was disheveled, eyes tired and looking Mac up and down like he has no business being here this early. Mac pushes through nonetheless, running up the stairs and into Charlie's room without a word.

"Hey man, I don't think that's such a good idea-" Charlie followed him up the stairs, his sentence cut off by the sound of Mac rummaging through his room. "What are you doing, dude?"   


"I need weed," Mac said without hesitating, pulling out boxes and looking through the drawers in Charlie's dresser. 

"I'm not a weed kinda guy," Charlie said, leaning against the doorframe. "Sorry." 

"So you don't smoke weed, but you'll huff glue and paint all day long?" 

"Weed makes me anxious," Charlie said with a shrug, giving him and apologetic look and moving into the room to sit on his bed. "I know a guy though."

"Why didn't you just say that then?" Mac said, hands falling down at his side's. 

"I dunno, didn't seem relevant."

Mac sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "You gotta lay off the glue, man." 

Charlie just laughed, nodding in agreement. "Why do you need it so bad anyway?" 

"This guy-" Mac started, unsure of how to describe the situation he barely understood himself. "I told him I'd get him some."

"I'm not involved in any of this though, right?" Charlie asked, furrowng his brow and scratching the back of his neck. 

Mac rolled his eyes, "No," he grumbled, turning to head back down the stairs. He grabbed the doorframe to stick his head back in the room and say, "Don't forget to give me the dealers info, okay man? This is important shit, so write it down or something." 

Charlie gave him a thumbs up and with that Mac left. He walked down the street eith his hands stuffed deep in his pockets, kicking rocks and spitting on the lawns of his neighbours. 

He felt good, excited maybe even. The bleachers gave him something to look forward to, it was something other than throwing rocks at stray dogs with Charlie in the ally, and so maybe the thought of sharing that space with Dennis made his heart jump a little in his chest. So what if he found himself smiling a little at the guys bluntness and unabashed vanity? It's new and exciting and he should be excited about it, because somebody other than Charlie is taking interest in him.  


Mac stared up at the sky, forcing the stupid grin off his face and got himself together enough to open the rusted gate to his house, the chain link rattled beneath his fingers and creaked when he forced it shut again. He opened the door to an empty house and sighed, trying to understand why he'd gotten himself stuck in such a completely unnecessary situation. 

He walked over to the phone hanging on the wall in the kitchen, too anxious to wait any longer. He dialed Charlie's phone number and waited four rings until he picked up. When he heard his tired voice greeting over the phone he asked him for the dealers information, getting a pen and scrawling crude blue ink over the palm of his hand. He hung up with little more than a, "thanks," and set to work.

  


  



	2. Samuel L. Jackson Wasn't Fit for the Part

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mac finally finds weed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the feed back! I'll hopefully be posting a new chapter everyday or so, hopefully I can manage to stick to that schedule. Anyways, thank you for reading and please leave comments and all that, I love hearing what you guys think!

Mac fell back, the palms of his hands digging into the grass behind him. Dialted eyes rolled back through hooded lids and a sigh sliped past tendrils of smoke rising from his lips. THC hummed through his system and settled the nerves twisting like knots in the pit of his stomach. 

Dennis leaned over Mac, looking up with red eyes and a lopsided grin. He lazily motioned for the joint, the paper wrapped tightly in now confident fingers. Mac gave it to him and laughed when he breathed in so much it came out his nose when he puffed it out. 

The cold painted their cheeks and noses florid red and Mac covered his mouth with his hands so the warm air would blanket across the numb flesh.

He could see Dennis beside him fidgeting with the joint, rolling it back and forth between his middle and pointer finger. Together the sat in a mushroom cloud of herbs and simmering anxiety. Mac knew they must worry about very different things. Dennis probably thought about college and SAT'S, while Mac was worried about when he would see his father again, and if his mom would be back in time to pay the electricity bill. 

Dennis never talked about his personal life, all Mac knew is that he has a twin sister named Dee and extremely wealthy parents. He assumed Dennis preferred to keep those boundaries because Mac was strictly here on business and he didn't plan on making friends. Mac tried to talk with him anyway.

 "It's freezing out here," Mac said, wanting to fill the silence around them with something other than smoke. 

Dennis didn't answer him, in fact he didn't even acknowledge him. He kept his eyes out on the football field, watching the football team and the cheerleaders practice. His leg bounced the hand with the joint, just like in the ally before. Mac wondered what was making him so nervous, or why he was so fidgety all the time. He chuckled a little when he thought of Charlie, wondering if maybe weed made him anxious too.

Crickets were beginning to come out from the hidden cracks and crevices and join the chorus of shouts from across the field. They were almost amplified by the silence between them, and it felt like Dennis wanted to leave. Mac could feel how tense he was, how his muscles were locked and ready to move despite the weed, and Mac wanted to say something just to make him stay a little longer.

Mac opened his mouth a little too late. He watched as Dennis snuffed out the joint in the dirt without asking if Mac wanted to finish it off. He pulled himself up by the metal support bars on the bleachers and wiped the dirt off of his jeans. He off handedly waved at Mac as if to say "let's do this again tomorrow," without saying anything. Mac figured it was best because he didn't want him here that badly anyway.

"Bye," Mac muttered to the ground, not bothering to look up to see if Dennis was close enough for him to even hear him.

-

"You smell," Dee commented, leaning in to sniff the collar of Dennis's shirt. He shoved her away, scowling as he sniffed it to see for himself. 

"Give me some of your deodorant then," he said, stopping along the sidewalk to try and unzip her backpack.

"Get the hell away from me, no way," she clamored, brushing away his greedy hands. "Nothing is gonna cover up that stink, you need a shower."

They started to walk again, shoulders brushing every once in a while. They were mostly quiet until Dennis could sense she had something else to say. 

"That kid is a scumbag," she finally blurted, pulling on the back of her ponytail and averting her eyes to avoid Dennis's glare. 

"You're acting like it was his idea," Dennis admitted. "I'm not entirely sure that kid even smokes." 

"Oh, does he smoke," she said with a mocking tone that rang in her brothers ears. "Jesus Christ Dennis, of course he does. Just look at him." 

"I don't know Dee, he seemed pretty inexperienced to me." Dennis shruged with his hands deep in his pockets, closing his fingers around the bic lighter he'd bought at the gas station across from the football field his freshman year. How it lasted that long he'd never know.

She thought for a moment, figuring maybe, just maybe, she'd judged the kid too harshly. She looked down at her shoes, kicking rocks and absentmidedly stepping over the cracks in the sidewalk. She hated talking with Dennis, she really did. Not once has he ever supported her or been anything but cold hearted, and she tried so hard not to let that get to her head. She'd have to learn to not care what Dennis thinks.

She took a deep breath and said, "You're wasting your life away is all I'm saying, I have plans and I'm not letting you drag me down." 

"Being an actress is not a plan," Dennis scoffed, laughing when he made Dee frown just like he knew she would. "I'm just taking my time, cruising through life. Not a care or worry in sight."

Dee didn't take her eyes of the ground, instead she ignored his words and fired back at him.

"Act cool, calm, and collected all you want," Dee began, stopping when the sidewalk broke way to the pavement of their driveway. "But I'll always know you're full of shit." 

With that she turned on her heels, smirking as she left a baffled Dennis standing at the top of the driveway.

-

A heavy bass poured through the static of the radio in Mac's pick up truck. It lost signal every now and again only to pick back up on another verse. The rapper in the song fed Mac and Charlie arduous words to serve as an backdrop for an otherwise mundane conversation. 

"I just think-" Mac said, leaning against the back window of the truck. "For the movie to have actually been good, Samuel L Jackson should've played Vincent."

Charlie looked up at Mac from the floor of the tailgate like he'd just spit right in his mouth. 

"How would that make any sense what so ever," Charlie sputtered, completely appalled by his friends lack of respect for the movie roles.

"Well-" 

"Nope, changed my mind," Charlie interrupted before Mac could even begin. He swallowed around his mouthful of beer and waved his hand infront of Mac who was fully prepared to go into a Pulp Fiction fuled rant. "I don't even wanna hear your bullshit reasons anymore." 

Mac laughed it off, swatting Charlie's hand away and reaching down into the cooler to grab another can of beer. 

"Oh and where the hell were you today, man?" Charlie asked through another sip.

"Really? Do you just kinda, forget everything I tell you?" Mac said, scowling down at his friend who only shrugged. "I was with that guy, Dennis. The one who wanted the weed."

Charlie's eyes widened when the whole ordeal came back to him. "Oh shit that's right, how'd that go?"

Mac shrugged, looking up at the blistering blue sky above them. "Fine, I guess. He's kind of a dick." 

Charlie chuckled, "Thought we already knew that," not even trying to hide his jealously.

"Awe, don't be angry Charlie. I love you man, you know that." Mac pressed his knuckles into Charlie's scalp and ruffled his already unruly hair. Charlie's groans gave way to laughter as he pulled Mac's hand off his head. 

"Okay, okay enough of that," he said, their laughter fading into the music that surrounded them.

The two settled into a comfortable silence, something he wasn't able to do with Dennis earlier. Dennis was a complete mystery, a safe locked in bullet proof casing. That fact alone made Mac want to pry, made him want to ask questions, pick the locks. He wanted to know everything there was to know about the guy, but he just wouldn't give.

Mac was more frustrated than hurt, he was so used to Charlie who didn't have a single secret kept away in his split wide open chest. He told Mac everything. And maybe Mac wasn't so used to having to work for information, or maybe he wasn't so used to even caring to hear any of it at all. But he did, and he was determined to get something out of the guy tomorrow, if not to just satisfy his new found curiosity.

Mac and Charlie sat there drinking and nodding along to the too loud music until the sun ducked behind the horizon line, until the neighbourhood was painted with shadows and the orange glow of the streetlights highlighted the stretch of broken pavement that was their street. 

Charlie waved goodbye eventually, keeping his head down and swaying slightly as he made his way down the street to his own house. Mac stayed in the flatbed of the truck for a while, he closed his eyes and ran a hand through the soft strands of hair that had fallen across his forehead.

He stayed out there until the radio finally fell silent and all that could be heard was the faint bark of a dog that's been tied up for too long, until his nose and cheeks burned like they did under those bleachers, and inevitably pulled him indoors to the warmth of his bed.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The part about Pulp Fiction was supposed to be a reference to their Lethal Weapon movies, if anybody caught that, props to you my friend!


	3. Oh How Different We Are

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlie makes a new friend, and Mac finds what he's been looking for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really liked this chapter, maybe because we get to see more into Mac's inner turmoil, or maybe it's the imagery, I dunno. Hope you all enjoy:)

Heavy feet hit the pavement hard, alarm bells were screaming out overhead and a heart beat jumped frantically inside a heaving chest. 

Mac pulled the six cans of beer tightly to his chest and booked it over a fence set low in the cement of an allyway. Charlie took the corner right behind him, following Mac's lead with a bag of chips tucked away in his jacket.

"It's not worth it, it's not worth it, it's not worth it!" shouted Charlie, struggling over the fence and following Mac around another corner that lead them into a different neighbourhood. The shouts of the store manager grew quieter as they kept running and it was soon replaced by the sound of deep inhalations and worn sneakers slapping against the pavement. 

Mac came to a halt, his legs wobbling and feet skidding a little at the abruptness of his stop. He bent over on his knees, letting the cans of beer slip out of his hands as he caught his breath. 

"Christ, dude," Charlie gasped through his own ragged breaths. "That was not worth it."

"Maybe not," Mac admitted, wiping his palms on his jeans and scrunching his nose as he looked around at where the heist had taken them. "

"Why couldn't we just take beer from your mom?" 

Mac looked over at his friend and scowled. "Because maybe I'm tired of stealing from her, okay? That shit's not right, she's my mom."

Charlie didn't question the logic, he didn't bother explaining that stealing from a gas station wasn't exactly taking the moral highground either. He just squinted his eyes and cocked his head to the side, biting the inside of his cheek and stifling whatever opinions he had on the matter. 

Mac motioned for Charlie to follow him again, looping his fingers around one of the plastic holders of beer. They wandered around the neighborhood for a while and admired the large houses with the manicured front lawns. Each yard had a fence around it and each driveway was newly paved, the flatop still black and shiney. 

"Dude, we look so out of place here," Mac said through a chuckle, finding the suburban area almost comical. 

Their dirty clothes and greasy hair was in stark contrast to the rest of the polished neighborhood. Mac could imagine the people inside the homes with hair as neatly trimmed as their lawns and their polo shirts freshly dry cleaned, not a wrinkle in sight. He imagined a perfect family sitting at a table where the father asked about the kids day and the mother took careful sips of her wine. It was picture perfect and suddenly Mac didn't find it so funny anymore. 

Mac heard Charlie clear his throat behind him, causing him to look back. Charlie gestured towards a house near the end of the street, the name "Reynolds" embroidered on the mailbox at the end of the driveway. 

"No shit," Mac muttered, stopping on the sidewalk to gawk at the house.

"Should we say hi?" Charlie asked naively.

Mac turned around and scoffed. "No, absolutely not. We do not say hi to them, what is wrong with you?" 

"Well I just thought-"

"No Charlie," Mac said, grabbing his friend by the sleeve and dragging him down the street. "Let's just get out of here, man. We don't belong here."

It stung to say it, it pulled at something deeply rooted in his chest. Mac just wanted a family. He just wanted somebody to make him dinner and ask him how his day went. He wanted a big house with a lawn that didn't have brown spots or trash scattered everywhere. He wanted so desperately to belong somewhere; too good for the burn outs but too poor to drift anywhere near that rich kid stratosphere.

Mac kept his stoic gaze to the ground, lost in his thoughts and ignoring Charlie's worried glances and consternation drawn frowns. They eventually found their way to the overpass, pulled in by it's familiar sights and sounds, comforted by the way the concrete and iron structure sighed with each passing train that clamored across it's tracks. 

Mac and Charlie loved it here, secluded in their own little world. When they were younger they would climb the hill towards the tracks and throw rocks at the trains, believing there was never a better way to spend an afternoon. Now it's lost it's fun and instead they drink until they can no longer stand up, they lean up against the concrete wall and laugh until their chest hurts, and most of the time Mac wished they never had to leave.

Today was different, because today they weren't alone. There was a girl sat by their spot on the wall with her head burried in the pages of a book that was falling apart at the seams. Mac stopped in his tracks, trying to stop an undeterred Charlie from going over and making friends.

"Let's just get out of here man-" he began but was cut off, unable to stop Charlie from shouting her name and effectively lifting her head from the book to look up at him.

"Hey! Dee Reynolds, right?" Charlie asked, jogging up to her with Mac reluctantly trailing behind.

"Yeah?" she said looking up at them quizically. She squinted her eyes, trying to put names to the faces before her. "Mac and Charlie, right?" 

"Yeah," Charlie said a bit too eagerly. He nervously stuffed his hands in his pockets, smiling back at his unammused friend behind him. "So, what are you doing here?" 

"I'm trying to read," she said while aggressively raising the book up to show them. Charlie bobbed his head a little, thinking of ways to fill the silence.

"Sweet," he said lamely. "Me and Mac were gonna get drunk and watch the trains, if you wanna join us," he offered despite Mac's persistent protests and he quietly wondered if Dee only agreed just to spite him.

She put her book face down in the dirt, scooting over to make room for the two. Charlie handed her a beer, cracking it open along with his own. She skeptically watched the two drink, noting how they winced a little at the liquid running down their throats. For a while they said nothing, waiting for Dee to make a move. She finally took her first drink only to spit it out immediately. Charlie and Mac watched with raised eyebrows as she gagged and coughed, holding the offensive drink out with one hand and the other wiping it off her lips.

"That's disgusting," she exclaimed, making a face at the can that was still in her hand. 

Mac shrugged, "You get used to it I guess." 

Dee looked over at him and then back to the beer and, trusting his word, she took another cautious sip. 

"Yeah, you don't really drink it for the taste," Charlie commented, watching as she finally swallowed it.

"No shit," she said, still gagging at the bitterness on her tongue. She kept drinking anyways, just grateful they weren't laughing at her expense. 

The afternoon dragged on until there were no more beers and the bag of chips was nothing but crumbs. Dee was swaying along the rusted iron of the train tracks, her book long forgotten in the dirt down below. Her arms were outstretched with her head tilted up towards the dwindling light in the sky. Charlie was right behind her, occasionally pushing her a little just to see if she would stay on. 

"Fuck off," she called out through her airy laughter. The sound filled Charlie's head and made his insides swim. He's never felt so light before, it was almost like he was weightless, like his feet would lift right up from the rails and he would just float aimlessly around in the gold sunset stained clouds. 

Mac was laying down in the grass beside them, his hands splayed out on his chest and letting the sound of their voices bring him to the edge of sleep. Behind his eyes he drew images of Dee's family, what he pictured them to be like. He imagined Dee and her brother playing in the backyard, maybe their father played catch with him, or maybe they had a pool they all swam in during the summer.

Mac lost himself in this family he's created behind his eyelids, only to have them all disappear when Charlie lightly kicked him in the ribs. 

"What the hell?" Mac groaned, sitting up and running his hands down his face to wake himself up.

"Dee had to go," Charlie blurted, looking around at the empty rails. "We should too, probably."

Mac sighed, pulling himself up and following Charlie down the hill. They gathered up their belongings, pulling the trash together in a pile and pushing it in the shadows of the overpass. Charlie picked up Dees book, brushing it off and tucking it in his jacket. He shrugged when he saw the question unfolding on Mac's face. 

"I'm gonna give it back to her at school," he said innocently, as if he wae completely unaware of their status.

"You do realize she's gonna ignore you when we're there, right? It's different around other people, man." 

Charlie nodded as he walked back out into the street towards their neighborhood. "I know, I just think she'll want it back. It doesn't have to be a big thing."

Mac fell into step with Charlie, mimicking his slouched figure. "Right, but you just gotta remember, we aren't even in the same universe. You saw her house Charlie, we're from different worlds," Mac said, gesturing back towards the direction of her home.

Charlie humed in response, maybe in denial of the whole thing or just all too accepting of it. 

They walked the rest of the way in silence, their shawdows dancing across the dusk shrouded streets. There's that dog again somewhere in the distance, and a shout accompanied by a slamming metal gate. Behind the doors of these houses nobody is eating a home cooked meal or asking about each other's days. Inside these houses are convict father's and alcoholic mother's. There are tired eyes and half heart glances at the breakfast table. You have to fight for love and happiness in these houses, you have to take that sliver of hope, that one second of joy, and hold onto it with all you're worth.

Mac waved goodbye to Charlie, opening the metal gate and not bothering to close it all the way. He unlocked the front door to see his mother sat in the living room, eyes glued to the Tv screen that flickered across her blank face. She didn't even look up at Mac as he walked through the living room, only shifting slightly when he blocked her view of the Tv.

Mac looked at her from the stairs, he felt a pang of guilt for stealing her ciggarettes to give to a kid who didn't even know how to appreciate them. 

"I love you, mom," he said quietly, just loud enough for her to hear above the sounds of her show.

He climbed up the stairs and into his bedroom, kicking off his sneakers and sliding under the covers, not bothering to change his clothes. Shadows painted themselves across his walls, hiding the peeling paint and holes that were just barely covered up by movie posters. The faint sounds of the Tv downstairs slipped through the cracks in his door, and even though the sun had just barely touched the horizen he was already fast asleep, letting thoughts of dark stares and fidgeting hands creep into his dreams.


	4. Weird Music from the Eighties

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mac finally attends a class, and Sweet Dee gets her book back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick thing I forgot to mention; I think they would've all been in highschool in the early 90s so that's when this is based, in case that wasn't clear before :)

Dennis had been coming to their spot for over a week now, each time the two sit in silence and smoke until their lungs burned. Dennis would usually spread out his textbooks and work until the crickets came out and the football team packed up and went home. 

Today Dennis didn't pull a book out of his bag, in its place was a shiney, brand new Walkman. Mac stared with wide eyes as Dennis rifled through his bag for a tape.

"Holy shit dude, where'd you get that?" Mac asked around the joint that hung loosely from his lips. He quickly handed it to Dennis who let it smoulder on his own lips while he found his tape, carefully inserting it into the deck.

"My dad," Dennis answered gruffly, short and to the point. He hummed absentmidedly, bouncing his bent knee up and down as he untagled the head sets and patiently waited for the music to play. He handed Mac one of the head sets without looking up from the device. He pushed his hand closer to Mac who hesitantly took the ear phones and placed them on his head. He adjusted the foam covered speakers while he waited for Dennis to plug in his own set. Mac's eye brows rose up to his forehead when he finally heard the music. Steve Winwood's voice crackled through the head set and Mac watched Dennis frown at his reaction.

"Don't," he said, anticipating Mac's next words. "You don't have to listen, if you don't like it." His words were more nervous than he intended, they were supposed to be a threat but came out more like a question.

"No," Mac said as he moved in a little closer so the headphone chord wasn't pulling so tightly. "No it's fine. It's just different."

Dennis relaxed a little, his shoulders loosened and he didn't seem so tense. "Hm," was all Dennis had to say, turning his attention away from the walkman and back out to the football field. 

He stayed a little later that afternoon, he stayed after the joint had burned out and the field was abandoned. It was just the two of them alone under the bleachers, listening to a man sing about a fictional high life through cheap head sets. The atmosphere made Mac feel like they were the only two people left in the world. And even though Dennis didn't talk much, or really do anything much at all, Mac didn't think he would mind it if it was just them after all. 

-

"Dennis has a walkman," Mac whispered over to Charlie who was doodling something in his notebook. He didn't look up from the pages as he nodded, pretending to catch onto Mac's every word. 

The teacher sat in the front of the classroom behind her desk, eyes framed by thick glasses and short, tghtly wound ringlets of greying hair. Mrs.Adams hushed somebody in the front row who laughed a bit too loudly in the silent room. 

"He listens to this weird eighties music, I dunno man," Mac said, slouching down further in his seat and scratching at his scalp. "It was weird cause, I thought he was gonna leave like he always does, but he didn't, and I think he might have like ADD or something cause the guy is super fidgety." 

"Uh huh," Charlie said as he vigorously erased something with the last bit of the eraser on his pencil. 

"Are you even listening?" Mac asked, tapping his friends shoulder and ignoring the glare from the teacher. 

Charlie picked up his head and looked around in a moment of confusion. "Huh?" he asked as his eyes landed on a mildly offended Mac. 

"You didn't hear a word I said!" Mac declared, earning a well deserved shush from Mrs. Adams. He just rolled his eyes and continued in a lower voice. "Dennis is acting weird, and I know I don't even know the guy that well, but he's been staying late and he's never done that before." Mac doodled on his own paper as he talked, disregarding the open book in front of him, finding that Shakespeare was infinitely less enthralling than Dennis Reynolds.

"You ever think-" Charlie began, stopping to tear the piece of paper from his notebook-"that maybe he just enjoys your company?" 

Mac sat for a moment, thinking it over. It was almost comical how Mac didn't even consider that an option. 

"I wouldn't go that far," Mac drawled. "But maybe something like that." 

Charlie huffed a quiet laugh and stuffed the paper in his bag, anxious for class to be over so he could return Dee's book. The second the bell rang he muttered something like a goodbye over his shoulder to Mac and rushed out into the hall, pushing through a sea of arms and shoulders and elbows. 

When he finally saw Dee at the end of the hall he slowed his stride, suddenly finding himself self conscious and a little afraid. What if Mac was right? What if she thought he stole the book or she looked down at him like that afternoon never happened? He let his nerves get the better of him and decided to follow close behind her, making sure to keep his distance so she wouldn't notice him. The crowd began to thin out and soon enough it was just the two of them, almost a whole hall length apart. 

Dee heard the timid footsteps behind her and immediately quickened her pace. Panicked thoughts of who was lurking behind entered her mind with images of teasing sneeres and crude names flashing before her eyes. Without thinking she spun around, ready to lunge at the person, back brace be damned. 

"Get the fuck away from-" She stopped mid sentance when she saw who was cowering beneath her. It was Charlie with his kind eyes and scruffy hair and tucked in his too big jacket was a book -her book. 

"Oh, hi Charlie," she said, exhaling shaking and taking two steps back, nervously tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "Sorry I didn't know it was you I thought-"

"No, don't be sorry it's okay," Charlie interrupted, just glad that she was happy to see him. In fact, she seemed relieved that it was him. Maybe she wasn't everything Mac made her out to be, maybe she was just as lost and confused and hurt as Charlie was. 

"I brought your book," Charlie said, offering it out to her. She took it carefully from his hands, smiling a little when she saw how nervous he was. 

"Thanks Charlie," she said, taking off her backpack so she could put the book away. "I've been looking for this everywhere." 

He scratched the back of his head and chuckled, eyes cast down to the floor. "Heh, yeah well, it's no thang," he said and immediately wished he hadn't. 

"Sure," Dee said, finding him nothing but amusing. "Listen, gotta get going, but we should hang out again sometime. That was fun."

Charlie's eyes widened in surprise. "Oh shit, really? I didn't think you were like that, I mean-"

"I know, me neither. And to be completely honest I totally freaked out for about two hours after that. I was completely terrified my mom would find out I was drunk so I sat in the freezing cold trying to sober up until I realized she wouldn't give a shit anyway." 

They both laughed at her inexperience, and Charlie felt just the smallest bit of pity when she said her mom wouldn't care. 

"Right, right. Well, if you need more training me and Mac are always around somewhere," he said, pulling on his backpack strap and slowly backing away. "Give me a call or something. My number's in the book." 

He walked off before Dee had a chance to say anything else. She pulled out the book and opened it to a bookmarked page that had a string of just barely legible numbers that were scratched out a few times. At the bottom it said, "- Charlies ###," messily scrawled across the paper. 

Dee tucked the book away, sighing a little as she made her way out of the school to find her brother. When he asked why she was smiling so much she told him it was nothing, she was just having a good day for once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading! Look out for a new chapter tomorrow as scheduled. I love hearing your feedback so don't be afraid to leave a comment!


	5. Gas Station Pizza and the Half Burnt Cigarettes You Kept Trying to Smoke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlie, Sweet Dee, Mac, and Dennis all hang out finally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the support you guys!! As always there will be a new chapter tomorrow. Keep leaving comments and all that, I love hearing what you think!

A bell rang out through the empty halls of the school which quickly filled with students who were anxious to get their things and get out. Conversations, shouts, and jeers replaced the eerie silence and last minute anouncments were called over the intercom. Mac pulled his way through the crowd and out to the front steps, feeling the contents of his backpack clamoring as he held onto it with one strap and letting the other strap dangle. His wandering eyes searched the courtyard for a familiar face when he saw Dennis aimlessly looking around, checking his watch every now and then while he was obviously waiting for someone. 

Mac wanted to run up to him, to greet him and maybe ask to hang out, but that wasn't what they were to eachother and they would never see each other outside of their little bubble behind the bleachers. 

So Mac instead waited for Charlie, he spotted him across the courtyard and waved. He dropped his hand when he realized Charlie wasn't walking over towards him, but instead he was greeting Dee Reynolds who was headed over towards her brother. She didn't look annoyed to see him, she just smiled and slowed her stride to walk beside him. 

Mac jogged down the steps to his friend, figuring maybe it wasn't so bad Charlie had made such good friends with a girl like Dee. 

"Hi," Mac said mostly to Charlie who looked up to greet him with a big goofy grin. 

"You two are friends," Dennis asked Dee blandly, mostly stating rather than asking.

"Yeah, Charlie's cool," Dee assured him, making Charlie smile even harder. Mac could've punched him for looking so dumbstruck. "And you already know Mac," Dee gestured towards him, though Dennis didn't even look him in the eye. 

"We gotta go," Dennis said motioning with his head in the direction of home. 

"Well, if you guys wanna stick around we were gonna go get some food and hang out," Charlie said, watching as Dee's eyes glistened with the invitation. 

Dennis groaned and Dee punched him in the shoulder in return. "Shut up, dont go if you don't want to, but don't be a dick." 

"I'm not being a dick, I just don't wanna be around them," Dennis gritted through a clenched jaw, gesturing towards Mac and Charlie.

Mac felt his heart sink into his stomach. He looked down at his feet and wondered what happened to the other day. What happened to the shared music and the faint hope that maybe he was finally making some progress? It was stupid, false, and foolish. Mac should've known all his good for is bummed ciggarettes and stale weed. 

"I can't-" Dennis began, but was cut off by Dees hand flying up in his face. 

"Go home, asshole," was all Dee said as she started walking down to the curb. "I'll go, c'mon guys." 

Mac looked to Charlie who only shrugged. Charlie followed Dee, looking back at his friend hoping he'd follow. Even though Mac had lost interest in the day all together, he started to walk with them, hoping whatever they were doing would take his mind off of the guy.

"He's a dick," Dee said, offering a warm smile that made Mac's chest tighten. Dee could be so kind when she wanted to be. "Don't listen to him. I mean I know I kinda said the same thing but, he's manipulative and a dickhead, so don't take it to heart." 

Mac nodded, telling himself he was already over it. "It's cool," was all he could say behind the small lump that hadn't yet dissolved in his throat. 

Mac felt Charlie patting his back and he forced a smile at him. It's all in the past now; stupid boys who waste their good potential, who hurt other perfectly fine -maybe just okay- boys. He's left it all in the past. 

The three walk with their heads down, talking about their day and all the classes they hate and just plain detest. It was mostly Dee and Charlie talking, too caught up in the discussion to pay attention to Mac. Dee just thought he was the quiet type, he never said much when she was around. She didn't like that feeling, like maybe she annoyed him or he thinks he's better than her. She needed to be liked, and whether she thought so before or not, she needed Mac to like her too.

"What's the deal with you and Dennis?" she asked, wincing slightly at her accusing tone. So much for getting him to like her. 

Make just shrugs, elbows straightening and hands burried in his pockets. "I give him weed, and he smokes it," he said solemnly. As he looked up from the ground, he heard an unfamiliar voice echoing from across the parking lot of the gas station.

"Hey!" the kid called out, hands cupped over his mouth so his words would reach the three. 

Mac squinted, trying to make out the face from a distance, as he stepped closer he could see it was Dennis who now jogged over to catch up with them. He rubbed the back of his neck and smiled apologetically at them.

"Sorry," he blurted to Mac's surprise. "I'm sorry about what I said earlier, I mean." 

Dee stared at her brother trying to decide whether this was some borderline manipulative stunt, or if it really his version of a half assed apology. She crossed her arms and backed away a little, wanting Dennis to direct his words more so at Charlie and Mac. 

Mac and Charlie exchange glances before Mac nodded, ignoring the way Charlie muttered something sarcastic about how Dennis really has a way with words. Mac didn't care. He didnt care how half hearted his words seemed because the fact that they were said at all was what mattered. He didn't know much about Dennis but he did know talking was not his strong suit. And if that is ultimetly Dennis's biggest flaw, Mac figured he could live with that.

"I'm fine," Mac said, and he felt optimistic when Dennis didn't tell him how he didn't ask or care, this time he just nodded and looked around nervously like he was waiting for an invite. 

"You wanna come with us douchebag, or what?" Dee suddenly asked, knowing he wouldn't leave them alone anyway. 

"Yeah," Dennis said, letting himself fall into step with the group. 

He refused to walk next to Mac and Charlie the entire time, he stood next to Dee waiting in line at the gas station and walked a little slower so he could match her pace walking back to the overpass. He stayed as far away from the two as possible, and Mac thought maybe it was just awkward with Charlie being there too until he caught them laughing together under the bridge. He watched Charlie do what Mac couldn't, and he watched Dennis with his airily dry laughter and his smile that split across his cheeks. 

Mac decided he should try being less sensitive to Dennis, he needs to shut himself up and stop trying to ignite the small sparks of hope Dennis had somehow put there earlier. He was conflicted between trying too hard and not trying hard enough. Friendship was something you couldn't force, and clearly it just wasn't meant to happen. He needed to let it go, and so he did.

Dee came over to sit next to Mac, pushing over a the box of a half eaten pizza so she could spread out beside him.

"Gas station pizza isn't as bad as I thought it would be," she commented, watching Charlie and Dennis from a far. They were leaning up against a concrete wall, smoking cigarettes halfway and nursing lukewarm beer. 

"Mm," was all Mac said, picking at the grass beneath his feet. He heard Dee sigh next to him as she turned to face him. 

"Is this about Dennis?" she asked, watching Mac's face lift up to look over at her brother.

"If I'm being honest, yeah," he admitted, feeling a little ridiculous. "It's not a big deal, just rubbed me the wrong way I guess. I'm not usually such a pussy so I don't know what my problem is," he chuckled, though Dee wasn't laughing with him.

"I get it, he has a way of doing that, gets under your skin." She looked distant when she said it, like there was something else on her mind. She joined him in picking at the grass, twisting the green strands around her fingers until the tips turned purple. 

"He does like you, yanno," she said and that sentance froze every bone in Mac"s body.

"Really?" he asked, hating how pathetic he sounded. "He told you that?" 

"No," she said, noting how he visibly shrunk when she did. "But I can tell he does. He wouldn't be here right now if he didn't." 

Even though he didn't necessarily believe her, he still took her word for it, and as the afternoon dragged on, his agitation and self doubt was replaced with laughter that strained his muscles, the kind you could feel all around your chest and warmed your insides. The kind that had you curling over, clutching your sides and wiping tears off of your cheeks. Even though they eventually ran out of beer and food, they all stayed under the over pass until it was too dark outside to see in front of your face.

The four of them sat close together, Mac and Dennis leaning their backs against the concrete and Charlie and Dee sitting just a few feet away. Charlie had just recently discovered Dee's nickname and wasn't letting go of it anytime soon. 

"Sweet Dee!" he said through another fit of laughter. "You guys get it? Like sweet tea, but Dee?" 

Dennis rolled his eyes, looking over at Mac and shaking his head in dismay. The two hadn't really had a conversation aside from small talk and jokes at Charlie and Dee's expense, but they were getting there slowly with sideways glances and short bursts of laughter.

"It's just a name you guys, get over it," Dee said, crossing her arms over her chest. 

"And an extremely inaccurate one too," Dennis notes, earning a glare from his sister.

"Fuck off,"

"What? It's true," he said matter of factly, making Mac smirk a little at his bluntness. "You are far more bitter than you are sweet." 

"It's a nice name, Dee," Charlie said, wiping his eyes on the sleeve of his jacket. "Really." 

She rolled her eyes and groaned when an unstoppable grin fell across her face. "Thank you," was all she said, still trying to act annoyed. 

Dennis checked his watch that hung a little loosely around his wrist, noting the time. 

"We should go," he said, standing up and brushing the dirt off of his pants. Everyone got up along with him, exchanging farewells and see you soon's. 

"Today was fun," Dennis said, and it took Mac a moment to realize he was talking to him.

"Yeah it was, thanks for coming," Mac replied, to which Dennis nodded again in return. He stood there for a moment, letting Charlie and Dee finish their conversation. He looked like he had something else to say, and Mac just stood there awkwardly waiting for him.

"Can I see you tomorrow?" Dennis asked suddenly, not at all what Mac was expecting him to say. 

Mac faltered for a moment, tomorrow was Saturday, they don't see each other Saturdays. He's never asked to see him on a weekend, and Mac wondered what was so different. 

"Why?" he asked inanly, forgetting that sometimes people hang out just because. 

"Um," Dennis said with a dry laugh, "I dunno man, today was more fun than I've had in a while?

"Oh," Mac muttered, nodding his head in understanding, shaking his head a little and chuckling at his own stupidity. "Jesus, yeah right, right."

"So is that a yes?" 

"Yeah, sure of course man."

"You'll being the weed right?" 

And there it is again. The thing that was guaranteed to keep Dennis coming back. Whatever, he could deal with it, at least he was somebody's go to for something, anything. If Dennis hung out with him for the weed, what did he care? 

"Of course," Mac said, forcing a smile. 

"Alright man, see ya." Dennis patted him on the shoulder, catching Mac off guard a little. 

Mac stood there, motionless as Dennis and Dee walked past him, disappearing around a corner into the dark. Charlie stood next to him, staring at an unmoving Mac. Charlie just shook his head at him, pulling him along the road back home.

"Jesus Christ man, you're ridiculous," he said, laughing when Mac pulled away. 

"Shut up," Mac said, helplessly grinning and rubbing at his shoulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter wasn't so good guys, I have a plan for the story, im just having some trouble concentrating on the words and stuff right now :((( I wanted to get this out today though so, here it is!


	6. That Corner Diner You Went to When You Were a Kid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mac and Dennis go out somewhere different  
> Dennis deals with heavy issues and Sweet Dee tries to help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, sorry this is a bit late but I had to take my time with this chapter. It's a little (a lot) personal to me and I think I needed to do that with this story. I need this outlet, somewhere to get out all the things I'm feeling but still have it make sense for the story. I think it works well for the character, but let me know if you feel otherwise. Sorry it's really heavy today guys, I hope you like it all the same :)

Dennis laid out on his bed with his arms crossed tightly over his chest, his hands rising with each breath he took. He shut his eyes tightly as the ceiling spun, the ridges in the plaster white paint created an agonizing hypnosis and the harder he closed his eyes the more pressure built up inside his brain. It was as if the grey matter was pulsating underneath his too thick skull. He rubbed his temples and groaned, his muscles pulling tightly when he rose up out of bed. 

The pain was constant and borderline unbearable. When he rose to his feet he stumbled, unable to find his balance on the wood floor of his bedroom. He slid his fingers across the wall just to hear the scrape of his nails against the wallpaper and made his way into the bathroom. He switched on the light and winced when the dull brightness seared down deep into his skull. He didn't look in the mirror, he couldn't make himself do it because he knew wouldn't recognize the dead eyed stare and hollow cheekbones staring back at him beneath the grime of the mirror. 

He turned on the slink and splashed the cold water over his skin, for a moment under the stream of the faucet, things were cool and placid. He didn't feel like his brain would drain out through the holes in his ears so much anymore. 

The tired eyes set in concave sockets blinked away the water and he grabbed a towel next to him to dry his face. Every movement was like pulling his body through molasses. He was tired and shaky, he felt like he was eighty years old instead of sixteen.

Dennis heard Dee call to him downstairs about breakfast. Instead of joining her, he went back to his room, grabbed his things, and slipped out the front door without his sister by his side. 

There was something inside of himself that didn't care anymore. He didn't know who he was and walking down the same road everyday had him feeling like a ghost haunting the neighborhood. He was a ghost that hadn’t yet realized it wasn't 1986 and he wasn't a little kid anymore. There was no more lakehouse in New Jersey and there was no more hoping for something better to come along. This was it, he figured. This was as good as it's gonna ever get and he should accept that fact before it pushes his face into to concrete and crams big fears like imminent death and isolation down his throat.

That wasn't something he tried to think about very often though. 

Dennis only saw Mac in the mornings when it was crucial. When he couldn’t stand on his own two feet and nothing made sense in the world. He liked Mac, he did. Mac never asked him questions, Mac never talked about his personal life, or tried to get closer than he already was. He just sat there and let him smoke his joint in the quiet that he built for him.

Dennis didn't mean for it to happen, but he found himself looking forward to sitting in the quiet that Mac continuously gave him over and over again, and he's not sure if Mac knows this, but if he wanted to talk to him maybe sometime, Dennis would be okay with that.

He especially never saw Mac on the weekend. It was an unspoken rule between them, but when Dennis saw Mac under the bleachers with his body pressed back against the bleachers and his head tilted up to the sky, he thought maybe things are going to be alright.

“Hi,” Dennis said as he approached him. Mac swung his head around, flicking the ash of the already lit joint into the dirt. Mac didn't say anything, he just held the joint out in front of him for Dennis to take. 

The first hit was always good. The smoke filled his black tar lungs and loosened the tightness in his muscles from this morning. His head spun a little too much though and he found himself falling a little too heavily into the dew covered grass. 

“You good?” he heard Mac ask, moving away from the metal support beams to go sit next to Dennis. 

Dennis coughed and passed him the joint. “Yeah,” he said, and then briefly wondered what the point of lying to somebody who barely even knows him is.

“Alright,” Mac said around the joint, looking out through the haze covering the football field. He didn't press him any further, he accepted Dennis for what he was, and maybe that was a liar and a self preservative narcissist, but Mac damn well wouldn't judge the guy for it.

They were silent for such a long time, so long that Dennis found himself not ready to leave when they almost finished the joint, the only thing still connecting them to each other. 

“I haven't eaten in a while,” Dennis admitted. He suddenly felt so stupid, he wished he could take it all bacl especially when he felt like he could already hear all of the things Mac had to say about it.

“Oh,” was all he said, not necessarily uncomfortable, but still not pushing anything either. 

“It’s not a big deal, just thought I'd tell you since you asked,” Dennis shrugged, taking the last deep inhale of the joint. “Figured what's the point in lying.”

Mac nodded and hugged his knees up close to his chest, fingers winding around the loose threads in the hole of his jeans. It was a big thing, what he had just said. It was a heavy subject to just unload on somebody and Dennis worried that he had made things too tense, this is not what these moments were made for. They were not built for admittances and heavy conversations. 

“We could go get some food, if you want,” Mac suggested finally, feeling stupid because obviously somebody who hasn't eaten is doing it because they don't want to in the first place. “You don't have to, but I know a place where we can just get coffee and toast, and they won't charge us or anything” 

The offer was so genuine and Dennis had never had such a heartfelt sentiment directed at him before. How could he say no? 

Mac stood up, offering him a hand to which he stubbornly declined. Dennis pulled himself up and wobbled a little once he was standing on two feet. When they started walking he pretended not to notice the way Mac stood a little closer to him, as if he was offering his hurt and broken body a sturdy and unspoken support. Dennis leaned in a little and let an unwilling smile fall across his face.

The diner was a little place just down past the school. The bell above the door chimed, alerting the staff of their arrival. Inside the lights hung low from the ceiling and there was little paintings and figurines everywhere. Dennis picked one of them up while they waited for their table and laughed a little at the object.

“‘S a lot of deer,” Dennis observed, putting it back on the shelf. 

“Yeah,” Mac laughed. “I dunno what the theme is exactly, I think the owner just likes animals.” 

They waitress came over and they were led into a big leather green booth. There was yellow stuffing that pooled out from a hole in the seat and it creaked a little with their added weight. Mac splayed his hands out across the polished wood table, his fingers sticking a little to the polyurethane.

Dennis leaned his head back against the wood trim and looked out at the restaurant. It was full of people eating and talking over plates full of eggs and pancakes. One woman in the corner sat with an open book and a still piping hot cup of coffee, only removing her eyes from the page to take small and careful sips. 

Mac looked at Dennis, he watched him flex his jaw and twiddle his fingers under the table while he waited for the waitress to come over and take their order. She was nice, filled their coffee mugs and came out quickly with the toast and a slight wink like a promise she would forget to give them the check later.

Mac watched as Dennis carefully picked apart the bread, letting it crumble beneath his bony fingers. Mac doesn't force him to eat it or butter it or anything, he just broke off a piece of his own and dunked it in his cup, hoping just maybe Dennis would do the same.

“I think I like this place so much because it reminds me of when I was a kid,” Mac said, slightly prompting Dennis to question him further. He didn’t, but Mac continued anyway just to fill the silence.

“My dad and I used to go every Sunday when he didn't have work. Sunday morning  Chadbourns’ he called it. It’s not very creative but it stuck.” 

Dennis looked up from his bread and smiled a little. He admired the far away look Mac got in his eyes when he spoke about his past. There was almost a glimmer in those dark irises and Dennis wanted to make it happen again, so he sat up a little straighter and listened more intently, telling him to keep going.

“We would get eggs and toast. I would get orange juice and he would get this big glass of chocolate milk. They came in those plastic cups that are made to look like real glass, and they were always so filmy that you couldn’t really see what was inside of it.” He looked down into his coffee cup, wrapping his fingers around it base of it so he could feel the warmth radiating off of the liquid inside, “and after we ate, I would always beg my dad to buy me something from the gift shop over there.” He pointed in the direction behind them where there was another room connected to the dining area. “He never did, but it didn't stop me from asking every damn time.”  Mac chuckled at the ridiculousness of his story, looking up from his drink to gauge Dennis’s reaction. 

“You like your dad?” Dennis asked suddenly, looking distant and a little hollow like his hunger had dissolved him of flesh and blood and all he had left was bone. 

Mac huffed, leaning back into the booth and staring out the window beside them overlooking the tiny parking lot. “I mean yeah, he's my dad,” he answered, leaving out the part where he stopped doing their Sunday Morning Chadbourns, where he stopped being his dad and just became this guy he once thought he knew. 

“Me too,” Dennis said in such a way that told him he understood without Mac having to explain anything. 

They sat there for a while. Dennis drank his coffee but left the toast untouched. Eventually, Mac got up to use the bathroom and when he came back out he saw Dennis was gone. He’d just up and left without a word or a goodbye. He had left so quickly there were still indentations from where he was sitting in the booth. His cup was half empty, but the toast was gone with the exception of a few crumbs. Mac climbed back into the booth, smiling at the empty space across from him.

And when the waitress cleared Dennis’s empty plate, whether or not Mac felt a little bit of pride was nobody's business but his own.

-

Dennis stared blankly as his wall. He’d spent the rest of his day trying to swallow down every feeling resurfacing beneath his skin, things he worked so hard to suppress coming back up in suffocating waves again.

Mac was his friend, he's already gotten closer to him than he wanted to, he'd already let himself feel more than he was supposed to. But there was Mac with his too big heart and shy smiles hidden beneath the shadows of his face. Mac with his diners and his toast, with his small gestures and expressions. He was so careful around Dennis and it made him like Mac even more than he was ever supposed to. 

Nobody ever told Dennis he couldn't like boys was the thing. Nothing but his own stubborn and persistent thoughts were keeping him from accepting it. He told himself couldn't be gay because that wasn't who he was supposed to be, and even if he didn't know who he was exactly, he at least knew he wasn't gay. He liked girls, loved them even, and Mac was not about to be the one to ruin that.

And the thing is, he could pretend to hate the guy if he really wanted to. He could run from that diner as many times as he wanted to but Mac would always save a seat for him. It scared Dennis half to death but Mac would always find a way to make room for him. He figured it was only a matter of time before Mac found out he's not worth any of that, and so maybe he should try to enjoy this affection while it lasted.

Dennis didn't move when he heard footsteps outside his room. Dee had cracked his bedroom door open just slightly, her fingers wrapping around the wooden frame so she could peer her head in. Her eyes adjusted to the dark, trying to find her brother in the empty shadows of his room. 

“Hey, you okay?” Dee asked tentatively.When he didn't answer she crept in closer, turning on his desk lamp and shutting the door behind her. “What's wrong Dennis?” she asked and this time there was more force behind her words.

In the soft light emitted from the lamp she could see his eyes were puffy and watery. She wished she knew how to react, how to do something other than just stand there open mouthed and clueless. Dennis felt her confusion and sniffed, shuffling over to make room for Dee. 

They sat quietly for a real long time. Dee wasn't sure what to make of this, of Dennis who she was sure didn't have any feelings at all, suddenly have so much of them bubbling up from behind his watering eyes and quivering lips. He sniffed again, and Dee drummed her fingers against her thigh while she tried to bite her tongue. She didn't want to upset him, she just wanted an answer and the more they sat there the more pressing it became.

“Dennis,” she said. “Please talk to me.” She watched as he slowly fell apart. When he began to cry she felt him drift too far out of reach for her to try and help.

Dennis was so soft and quiet it was like he was crying without really feeling anything at all. He shakily inhaled as a steady trail of wetness dripped down his chin. Dee watched him bite his lip and angrily wipe it away with his balled up fists, still fighting whatever was inside of him with what little energy he had left.

“I'm so tired Dee,” he whispered, exhaustion dripping from every broken and cracking syllable. “I'm tired of fighting with myself all the time.” 

He was so quiet it scared Dee. She’d never seen Dennis so much as shed a tear before and here he was falling apart right in front of her. 

He bowed his head a little. He'd stopped crying but now there was something more like self hatred crashing over him in waves. He felt like he’d been submerged in it for so long he'd forgotten how to come up for air and breathe. 

Dee placed her hand on his back and tried to say something, anything to fix this. “I'm sorry Dennis, I-” 

“Please don't,” he pleaded with her, almost  begging her not to get into it, to not make him think about it anymore than he already had to. 

“Just go to bed,” he said, refusing to look her in the eye. 

She slowly got up, feeling confused and a little hurt herself. She hovered by the door for a moment and when he finally looked her in the eye he wasn't crying at all. He looked empty. All she could see was a blank nothingness falling across his features.

“Goodnight,” she said weakly, because even if she wanted to say something like “you can talk to me anytime,” or, “I’m here for you” she knew it wouldn't have made a difference. He would never open up to her in the way she wished he would. He would never say the things she wanted to hear from him because Dennis just was not built that way. He was not built to feel so much and whatever was making him like that was going to finish him off before Dee got the chance to fix him.

What she didn't know, was that Dennis probably felt more than anybody ever should. He wasn't built to keep it all inside because nobody is. He was just like everybody else but for some reason nobody saw it. He just wanted to fit in, to be liked and wanted, to be seen as a person and not some dead eyed machine. Until today he thought that maybe he was alone and  nobody would see him like that.

Mac didn't know any better, he still saw good things in Dennis, and he would cling to that for as long as it lasted. 

When Dennis fell asleep that night, red eyed and raw, he dreamt about small corner diners and lightbulb bright smiles, the kind that pull your chest in tightly and make everything feel okay, and maybe everything would be. Someday, maybe things would be okay for Dennis, but for now he'd hold onto things like joints smouldering beneath his fingertips and boys who see the good things mixed up in all the bad somewhere inside him.

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also the diner I was talking about is a real place I went to with my dad when I was a kid. There used to be this wooden bear statue with an umbrella hat sitting beside an old piano. It had this change cup that you could tip the pianist in I think. And I really did always beg my dad for things at the gift shop even thought I knew he was never going to buy me anything from there. I had a lot of good memories there, although I just talked to my dad about it today and he said, and I quote, it was, "a real shit hole." So, there you have it!


	7. Beating Hearts like Fireworks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Gang goes to the park.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey I dunno how good this chapter will be, I haven't been all there lately and I've been trying to put all that I have into this but it's just not there and im upset about it. This isn't my best work, and I had to take a break Sunday, I hope you all understand. Hope your days have been well and that you enjoy this all the same :)

Dee bit her thumbnail down to the quick as she leaned back as far as she could go in the passenger seat. The engine was left running and the exhaust fumes were collecting in thick mushroom clouds behind the black Audi.

She sat waiting for Dennis to come back out of the house with an answer from Charlie and Mac. When she saw him jogging down the front steps she sat up and urged him to hurry over.

“What's the verdict?” she asked as Dennis climbed into the driver's seat. He answered with curt nod, laughing at Dee’s excited expression. 

“Let's roll,” he said, pulling out of the driveway and down the street out of their neighborhood.

Dennis followed the directions Charlie had given him over the phone. It had taken him several minutes to fully figure it out because Charlie needed to pull out a map and have Mac translate it for him. 

Dennis watched as the two story houses with white picket fences slowly turned into dilapidated buildings that sunk into the earth surrounded by broken chain link. The people who were still out walked with their heads bent low and suspicious. When Dennis passed by them he watched as their empty eyes got caught in the gleam of the headlights, a look of want flashing across their now dilated pupils. 

“What a shit hole,” Dennis muttered, hands tightening on the leather steering wheel. 

When he got to Charlie’s house he pulled into the driveway and shut the car off so the engine wouldn't wake anybody in the house. 

Dennis and Dee looked at each other, unsure if they should go in and risk being caught or just wait out here for them and hope they noticed the car. Before they could question any further Mac and Charlie came barreling out of the house, voices raised as they slammed the door shut behind them.

“Dennis!” they cheered, leaving the twins confused and astounded. 

“Guys, guys,” Dee frantically hushed when they clamored into the car. “Isn't your mom home or something?”

Both Mac and Charlie snorted, exchanging humorous glances. 

“Yeah, she's the one who gave me these,” Charlie said, holding up a six pack of beer, one of the plastic holders already empty. The two erupted into messy laughter, a slurred hiccup escaping from one of their lips. 

“Nah, she's out,” Mac clarified through his ebbing chuckle. “But we did bring beer.”

“Great,” Dee groaned, looking at her brother to signal for him to start driving. She leaned back and stuck her hand out for one of the cans which they gladly handed over.

As they drove deeper into the split open heart of the city, Mac leaned his head against his window and watched the red and blue and gold city lights roll past his eyes in one big blur. The radio was playing one of those sad songs sung over three chords on an acoustic guitar and Mac could see Dennis tapping his fingers to the beat on the steering wheel. For a moment he let himself imagine he was in the passenger seat instead of Dee. He could maybe lean in a little closer to him and bask in the sounds of his out of tune hums. 

Mac instead subtly looked over at him from the space between the seat and the door, catching his reflection in the window every now and again.

Charlie sat beside him and bounced his legs, anxious to get to their destination. It was different when it wasn't just Mac and him. When it was the four of them out drinking and smoking and talking, it wasn't just another night out, it was a moment cemented in their minds. It was something like a memory accompanied by a chorus of soundless laughter and hopeless slivers of affection wound into the cloth back drop.

He especially loved it when it was just him and Dee all alone. Mac is like his brother without question, and he liked Dennis just fine, but there was something about Dee that made his heart light on fire in his too spacious chest. 

Charlie liked her, he really really liked her and he knew Mac would tell him he's not supposed to because guys like him don't belong with girls like Deandra Reynolds, but just maybe there's an impossibly distant universe where they do, and maybe that universe just happens to be this one.

Dennis pulled into the dirt parking lot of a park, shutting off the headlights and unbuckling his seatbelt. Everybody piled out of the car, grabbing blankets and food and flashlights out of the trunk. They laid it all out on a dry spot in the grass, just in the middle of a clearing in the break of the trees so they had a clear view of the sky. 

Mac stood by while they settled in, swallowed up in the blue and black hues with the constellations that swelled above their heads. Dennis was staring at him and even though he knew Mac could see him doing it he couldn't find a way to tear his eyes off of his. Dennis watched as Mac hugged his shoulders and shuddered a little as goosebumps were born from the brisk air. It was his fault for wearing that cliche shirt with the ripped sleeves, but Dennis still wanted to hand him the knit blanket he’d brought for himself to shield him from the cold. 

“Come sit,” Dennis heard Charlie say, patting the spot next to him. 

Dennis scooted over the make room and they all squeezed in on the picnic blanket. When they sat there, tightly pressed against each other, it felt so much warmer. Especially when they all laughed and the white puffs of air that plumed from Mac’s open mouthed grins coalesced with his.

From the edge of the blanket Dee watched her brother smile. It was so different in contrast to the Dennis she saw the other night, crying in the dark throws of his bedroom light. She observed them all from afar but didn't feel isolated or distant, she just liked watching people be happy because she didn't get to see that very often.

Charlie was probably the happiest person she knew. He had so much to be sad about but the guy never stopped smiling and there was something amazingly admirable about that. 

“When is it starting?” Dee asked the group who’d almost forgotten the reason they were there in the first place. 

“In a few minutes,” Dennis answered, speaking his words up towards the sky. 

As soon as he spoke the sky began to glow with aurora borealis-esque lights. Fireworks with scads of color flashed eminently against the black sky. The lights danced in their wide eyes as they all watched the show with awe struck faces. Mac pointed up and gasped at one that crackled and simmered, it's long trails of gold sparks and ash drifting towards the ground.

“Oh shit!” Charlie exclaimed as the show got more intense, coming up on the finale. 

“Did you guys see that one?” Dee called out to them. She clutched her hands to her chest so she could feel the booming resonance of the fireworks reverberate deep in her ribcage.

“This is so cool you guys,” she exclaimed softly, and Charlie couldn't help but look over at her, smiling at her absolute wonderment.

The show was over with one final roar of explosives. There was the sound of cheers and applause filling the park as the people around them began leaving the area. 

Charlie turned around to face the group and asked, “Are we stayin?” 

Mac rifled through the pockets of his jeans until he pulled out a baggie containing four freshly rolled joints. He smirked up at them and said, “You know we are buddy.” 

They cheered, tossing their fists in the air and letting out easy laughter. Mac handed out the joints and passed around his lighter. He sat back on his palms and inhaled deeply. It was something he had to learn to enjoy. Before Dennis he didn't smoke much, mostly with Charlie but never on his own. Now he was rarely by himself and smoking was a big social aspect of the group. Now he liked the feeling it gave him, how it loosened up his mind and got in the spaces of his joints and muscles. He liked that it smoothed out all the kinks and knots he never knew he had. 

“Fuck that’s good,” Dennis said around a cloud of smoke rising up into the dark to join the smog from the fireworks. 

Mac looked over at him with the stars from the sky swimming in his dialated pupils. Charlie didn't say anything when he caught Mac staring at Dennis. He was a little more unyeilding than usual under the guise of the high he’d created for himself. Intimate barriers make denial so much easier and even though Charlie would never understand having to hide his feelings like that, Mac was sure he could understand. Charlie would at least try to know that Mac cannot afford to look at Dennis like that when they were sober because that would mean something neither of them would be ready to accept. 

Mac liked Dennis. He liked him so much he was sure no friend had ever felt that way about another friend, that no friends ever should feel that way about each other. Yet here he was with his heart in his throat and his thoughts flooding the barrier he’d never even thought to take down before. A wall built on anger, abandonment, and resentment. Something constructed by his father's religious hands that showed him that not even in his thoughts is he allowed happiness. That the family beneath his eyelids would never be real for him and boys don't look at other boys like that.

Tonight it would be okay though, because tonight he could pretend he was comfortable with that fate, with that horrible inevitable hell bound ending, and if Charlie thought anything of it than he could go fuck himself. 

Mac giggled to himself and positioned himself so he was laying down on the blanket on his side, his legs stretched out on the grass with his scuffed boots hooked over each other. The high pulled a thinly veiled sheet of exhaustion over their eyes. Mac let himself be rocked in and out of consciousness, the sound of Dee’s laugh and Charlie's words fading through his half drunk mind. He felt Dennis moving in closer, situating himself so Mac could lay his head down on his thigh. Mac closed his eyes and hummed constantly at the feeling of gentle hands threading through the soft strands of Mac's hair. 

They stayed long enough to sober up. Mac woke up to Charlie telling him it was time to go. Sleep clung heavily to his muscles and made his jaw hung heavy as the high from before deserted him, it left him feeling like he had cotton balls for teeth and a cloud for a brain. He blearily climbed into the passenger seat of the Audi, feeling too tired to hold his eyes open any longer he pressed his head to the window and fell back asleep.

Dennis took the long way back to Mac’s house, tapping his leg every now and then to wake him up for directions. 

In the backseat Dee rested her head against Charlie's shoulder, feeling placid in the deep breaths coming from his chest. Sometimes she felt bad for not wanting Charlie the way she was supposed to. She would scold herself for leading him on, for being a tease, but truthfully she just wanted a friend. Charlie was so good to her and she was happy to have somebody like her, she just wasn't sure why she couldn't bring herself to like him back. 

She was too exhausted to delve into it much further. She just leaned into Charlie's shoulder and sighed, closing her eyes and letting the headlights from the cars in front of them wash over her tired features. 

When they approached Mac's house, Dennis furrowed his brow and squinted to see if this was really the right address. The house was on its last breaths, the weight of it seemed to shove it into the crumbling coffin foundation, some invisible force pushing it down deep into the earth. The shutters that hung outside the dingy windows were crooked and flimsy, the porch sagged and swayed beneath the gentle wind. 

Dennis could see a blue screen glow coming from one of the living room windows. He guessed it was Mac's mom, waiting up for her son. He at least hoped that was the case.

“We’re here,” Dennis said, shaking Mac awake one last time.

Mac blinked the sleep out of his eyes and pulled his body out of the car, keeping the door open and ducking his head back in to say goodbye. 

“Bye guys, this was fun. See ya,” he said, giving Dennis a small wave which he returned with a smile. 

As soon as Dennis was sure he's made it inside he pulled out, driving just a little further to drop Charlie off. He got out with a curt nod and a faint goodbye, hands buried in his pockets as he climbed the front steps to his house. 

“What a night,” Dee said, climbing forward into the passenger seat. 

Dennis hummed, keeping his eyes locked straight ahead on the ride back home. He retraced his steps and finally got out of the bad side of town, driving into the wealthy part of town.

It was day and night, the contrast of their lives were so startlingly different, yet it made no difference when they were around each other. During school it was different. Dennis didn't talk to Mac and Dee never spoke to Charlie. They tiptoed around each other in the halls because in this world rich kids didn't talk to the burnouts.

Dennis sat in the driveway alone for a moment, staring up at the big house with nobody waiting for him inside. In this world rich kids might not talk to burnouts in school, but when they were all alone in their own little bubble they'd forged for themselves they told each other things they'd only ever dared to admit to themselves in the dark. They did things that were kept in heavily guarded hearts, only remembered in daydreams and nightmares.

Dennis made his way inside and put his dad's keys right back in the dish by the front door. He walked as quietly as he could up the stairs, wincing when the wood creaked under his weight. Nobody came out to ask where he'd been or what he was doing coming home so late. Mac might live in a shit neighborhood but at least he had parents that waited up for him. 

Dennis would never admit it but he wanted something furthest from his own truth. His mother and father could pretend and pretend, they could give him the pretense of a family life all they wanted but when nobody showed up to his school concerts or forgot to pick him up for his first day of second grade only to blame it on the nanny, he’ll always be chasing something more.


	8. What The Hell Did Dennis Reynolds do to Mac McDonald?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mac and Dennis have a falling out, if you can even call it that (aka Mac being so angry to the point that he finds it comical).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story has been so dark, so I wanted to make things lighter and more humorous at the end. I wrote the entire last part to the song Mr.Sandman by the Chordettes, it makes it infinitely better in my opinion so if you'd like you can listen to that you can go [here](https://open.spotify.com/track/1T3tP6HvCgDF8ewpRqwM1e) . 
> 
>  
> 
> Or just use Google, as I'm sure you all know how to do by now. Any how, please enjoy!

There was something picking and peeling at careful edges. Something like the dull blade of a knife cutting through the softest silk traded from overseas. It was a ball waiting to drop or a teeter totter over the tallest ledges. Long fingers tuck themselves between soft flesh, retching and retching until there was long strands of blood and saliva dripping off of them. Dennis wiped tears and snot and spit off of his face and muffled a scream into his side.

Somewhere in a cramped room there was frantic mumbling beneath a heavy tongue. Desperate pleas of forgiveness painted his furrowed brow a crimson red, scarlet letters on his chest told the whole world of his sins and he asked for the strength to rid of temptation. He prayed and prayed but the guilt and the nausea never left the alabaster of his skin.

The teeter totter getting difficult to control, arms are spread out and flailing wildly in attempt to reach out and grab hold of some invisible balance or support.

 Two sets of bruised knees, one on the linoleum the other pressed against the stained carpet. One hand was buried deep within a spasming throat and the other was clasped together on the bedspread. Tears dribbled down two chins and when they stood up they were both just as empty as when they started.

 Mac tucked his bible back under the bed and Dennis wiped his mouth and flushed the toilet. Mac pulled himself into bed and sat over covers he prayed for his sins over every night. Dennis passed by the bathroom with the door left ajar so the empty darkness spilt out into the hall. He walked down stairs and sat down at the dinner table, listening to scrapes of the forks against the ceramic plates. He got up and left the table without anybody even noticing.

 Tomorrow morning under the bleachers with the grey smoke colliding with the early morning fog, Dennis smoked and smoked until the ache in his jaw was nonexistent. Right beside him, Mac quietly wondered of Dennis could see his secrets like a priest in a confessional. He wondered how many Hail Mary's could fix this broken and wrongness inside of him.

 Dennis fell back against the metal bars. He wanted this to taste sweet, something like a one night stand. Instead it was sour and cynical and all too permanent. He was fossilized in the falsehood of a coma, this unsuspecting and whirlwind despair sitting like a rock in his gut.

 When he was crying in his room he wanted it to be a one time thing so he could feel like a person again. He wanted Mac to hold him maybe a little too close for it to be considered friendly and he wanted his sister to fit her arms over his shoulders and hug him so fiercely she might not be able to let go.

 Instead he was stuck here with an emptiness that twists his insides in a vice like grip. Something numb white knuckle gripping his stomach and ripping his chest apart with dirty fingernails.

 There was no such thing as being comfortably numb, and there was no such thing as safe and secure in the arms of somebody else because when that person lets go of you, you’re still the same as you were when you were fighting back tears in your bedroom. You’re still the same mess of that too big and bleeding heart you were before you found your way under the bleachers of your high school with some kid you thought could save you.

 Mac was looking at him like he could understand what it's like to be empty when it was really the opposite, he felt too full. He wanted to recite lines from the bible until he felt that heaviness lift from his chest, until he felt even and balanced.

 Together they were two polar ends of the same stick, they were fighting and gasping for breath but neither own knew how to give that something to the other that they each desperately needed.  

 Mac felt like he was looking in on the other side of a glass wall when he saw Dennis who appeared placid and calm. He looked like he was so sure of himself in the straight headedness of his posture and in the blank evenness of his features.

 “What?” Dennis asked without opening his eyes.

 “Hm?” Mac said, snapping out of his daze.

 “The fuck are you staring at?” Dennis sat himself up to stare Mac down, brows raised and tight lips pressed in a straight line.

 Mac froze, panic creeping up his neck in the form of a florid blush. “I wasn’t-” he stuttered, grasping at straws. He thought this is what they did, that no matter how wrong Mac thought it was, Dennis would always allow it. He would always be his scapegoat for indulging but there he was looking him in the face, catching him red handed and red faced and he doesn't even know what to say.

 “I don’t know,” he whispered lamely, keeping his gaze centered at the curls of hair falling out of place on Dennis’s head. Mac found his eyes again when his gaze softened, the fingers wrapped around the loose threads of his jeans unwound, finding his place back in Dennis’s universe again.

 He hadn’t meant it like that. Dennis could be cold and unforgiving but he hadn’t meant it.

 “I’m sorry,” Mac said, not realizing it was Dennis who should be apologizing.

 Dennis just laughed, it was angry and biting. He wished he could take his anger out on Mac, but the guy was looking at him with such sad eyes and was so ready to forgive him it was impossible to do it. He doesn’t apologize or say it’s not Mac’s fault, he just sighs and falls back onto the metal behind him.

 “Dennis why don’t you like me,” Mac asked suddenly, and he knew how pathetic he sounded, he knew how weak and ridiculous it was, but Dennis still hadn’t said anything, he didn’t even move really, just sat there with his arms tucked behind his head and his eyes shut tight. “Because whenever we’re around other people you don’t talk to me, and I know you’re just there for Dee or whatever, but then you come back here and it confuses me because you’re so nice to me when you’re high.” He picked at the rubber sole of his boot, rambling about things that had been building up inside of him for months. “I used to think you were only nice to me for the weed but the truth is you could be getting it from anybody else in that school, so what about me is so different? What’s the joke here, because I just don’t get it.”

 Dennis laughed again, bitter and laced with something that felt a little like sadness. “You’re the most self conscious person I’ve ever met,” was his only answer. “It's pathetic, man,” he said as he stood up to gather his things, leaving Mac with a gaping hole in his chest, bleeding out into the sand.

 

-

 

The hallways felt smaller at school that day. Mac walked around with a lump in his throat as big as hills behind a sweeping valley. The white paint of the walls blared into his searing skull and everything seemed to be closing in on him like a white light coffin.

 Dennis had ruined what could’ve been a perfectly good day, what felt like a good week was now cemented in this bad emotion. He saw Dennis in the halls. He kept Mac at a distance either with large groups surrounding him or vacant eyes boring into the back of Mac’s head. Whenever they made eye contact Dennis didn’t smile at him, he barely acknowledged him in fact, didn't once try to apologize or make things right.

 Mac was over it. He was over making Dennis happy, he was over being of nothing but a great service to him. After more than a month of this, acting like he was being forced to be around him, Mac was finally over it.

 He dragged his knuckles against the white brick, he was so lightheaded and dizzy, a heady cocktail of anger and confusion making his skull feel as though it had been lifted right off his shoulders. He wished he had a drink to ground him, or maybe even Charlie around to snap him out of it. Anything but the joints rolling around in the bottom of his bag, an ill feeling reminder of all that he’d done for the asshole.

 Mac jogged down the courtyard steps in four over four time, long legs stretching down the granite and skipping a step or two. He followed his line of sight when he saw the familiar head of blond hair over on a patch of grass waiting for her brother.

 Mac felt so comically angry, so uncharacteristically combative, that when he walked by Dee he called out, “You're brother is a fucking asshole,” without explanation.

 Dee stood back, staggering and a little bit dazed and confused. She turned her head to find her brother standing next to her, his eyes squinting a little as he watched Mac disappear around the corner towards his house.

 “What’s his problem?” Dennis snorted, turning to his sister and looking at her like he was as innocent as could be.

 She glared at him, a scowl replacing the open mouthed shock, “What the hell did you do to Mac McDonald.”

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We've all been in Mac's position before haven't we? Dont worry bud, Charlie and us have your back :)


	9. You Wanna Go Get a Soda?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mac and Dennis break up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get it? Like the name of the episode? hahaha. Anyways nice to see you all again! I have been busy workin away, making this chapter for you all. This story is more than I had originally planned for, and I couldn't figure out why it felt so off until I realized its because I'm trying to make short chapters tell a larger story. So this chapter is longer, more in depth, and is more my writing style. 
> 
> Please let me all know if you liked the changes I'd made so I can adjust my uploading schedule accordingly!
> 
> Hope you guys havent all gone and left me, and as always, enjoy :)

Dee found herself sandwiched between Mac and the wooden casing of a book shelf. She hugged her knees to her chest and peaked around the corner of the shelf to see if the alarms had shut off yet. The library was nearly pitch black, the shades drawn in and the lights turned off, she could just barely see the iridescent blue lights of the alarm sweeping across the hall. She felt Mac shift beside her, moving his elbow so it wouldn't be digging into her side as much. 

“Lockdown drills are so fucking stupid,” Mac grumbled to the carpeted floor, trying to choose between being pressed against Dee or the wall beside him, either way there was no escaping the compression and the tightness closing in on him from either side.

“Oh stop, you love having to sit so close to me,” Dee whispered, her voice was kept low so that they wouldn't get caught talking. She shifted over some more despite it never making a difference. “You have anywhere else to be anyway.”

She said it more as a hope, a desperate incantation asking for him to tell her that he liked her. Mac didn't come here looking for her though, he’d stopped by the library to sell off the rest of his weed and go back to sniffing glue with Charlie in his bedroom. No more fireworks in the park and no more bleachers, he was trying to erase every part of his life that Dennis Reynolds had somehow wound himself into. He was trying to cut away the little ropes he’d put there that tied themselves around his heart, constricting the muscle with every breath. 

Dennis was not good for him -and there was something pathetically revolutionary in that, or maybe it was just a regular thought, superiority was never in Mac’s blood. Dennis was always the leader between the two. 

Yet here he was with the guy’s sister, a friendship by proxy Mac supposed. 

“Hey so, where will you and Charlie be after school?” Dee asked and Mac silently cursed himself for not getting to the library sooner, maybe he could've avoided this confrontation all together.

“Dunno,” Mac answered curtly. He saw that she looked upset but he didn't feel bad about it. Her frown just annoyed him mostly.

Mac absent mindedly wondered if they should have sex, him and Dee. Maybe he just wanted to get back at Dennis or maybe he just wanted to get laid. Friendship by proxy, intimacy by proxy, Dee was the closest thing he had to Dennis anymore. 

She shifted again like she could hear his thoughts. Her body, her rules, even though people liked to play honor code style.

“Whatever’s going on with you and Dennis shouldn't have to affect me,” she muttered, pulling her knees closer to her chest and playing with the knots in her shoe laces. “I warned you fair and square,” she said and Mac laughed at her because she said it like he needed her more than she needed him.

“Fuck off,” she groaned, settling back into her space beside the bookshelf. “What did he do anyway?” she asked after a beat, watching the way Mac attempted to squirm his way out of the conversation.

She felt the a shift in power and now she was in control. Mac was non-malleable and easily manipulated, she would get him to talk. She would comfort Mac and get him to like her. His mind, his rules, but nobody played it like that anyhow.

He shrugged, crossing his hands over his chest as best he could. “You said it yourself Dee, the dude’s just an asshole.” 

“Right, so stop being sad about it if you already knew that,” she said like she thought it was easy.

“I try to see the good in everyone,” he protested though she assumed he was just full of bullshit. Nobody saw anything good in anybody anymore, not that there was anyone who was even worthy of that anyhow.

Mac was silent for a long time again, vacantly looking around at the negative space between the bookshelves. The fans whirred overhead and Dee silently counted the number of ticks she could hear from the tiny motors inside them. She wondered if she laid Mac out on a stainless steel mortician's table and cracked his head open, you could see his own little motors churning inside of his skull.

“I tried,” he spoke again suddenly, and this time Dee tried her best to believe it. “But Dennis, he's just a bad person, Dee.”

She could feel the pull of his struggle inside her own head, the delusions and messed up family relationships are threaded up into one big and angry tug of war rope. Dee knew better than anybody that sometimes those things are wild and angry like thunderstorms rolling through thick grey clouds, that Dennis was a storm whirling inside your head and sometimes you’d be left wishing it would rain harder just so you wouldn't have to hear the intrusive thoughts he put in there.

It was more the tone of his voice that told her all of this, not what he said. Dee was not like her brother or like Mac, she didn't take things at face value and she understood Dennis would always represent a greater conflict within all of themselves. It was a subtle nod to something too large of a concept to have a proper understanding of at such a young age, but she wondered about it constantly, wondered what her life would be like without Dennis there to shoot her down.

They both didn't realize they was just as lost as anybody else, just as delusional as any other kid trying to pretend they weren’t the product of a marriage like lemon juice poured over split open cuts. But they had something else in common, Mac and Dee. Something that made them feel terribly alone and isolated, and that predicted another loveless marriage thirty years down the line because they were too busy wading ankle deep in muddy water suppression to realize it's not what they wanted.

Dee stupidly hoped that someday the gentle touches and sluggish smiles from Charlie would make her feel something. She liked boys -one boy. She’d only ever liked one boy and his name was Bill Ponderosa who did nothing but glare at her from the sides of his beady eyes. Charlie was everything Bill was not, he was kind and thoughtful, a little dumb but who wasn't? He never said anything about her back brace and he wouldn't dare call her any crude nickname. He was all the things she was supposed to like, and yet she felt nothing. Maybe she was just so full of self pity she couldn't allow herself to have someone as good as Charlie, or maybe it was something as simple as the girl sitting across from them in her own corner of the room. 

Dee wasn't one to keep her thoughts a secret, but with this one she might have to learn how.

She felt like she should say something to Mac, something to make him come back and help her forget in the ways Charlie should have. Her intentions should have been more amicable, more centered around alleviating the pain inside of him that she understood all too well. Instead she pushed away the deeper discussion with the words, “Mac, you're going to find somebody so much better than my brother.” 

Mac frowned at her, unsure what she meant exactly, unsure what she thought she knew precisely. He wasn't reading into her words, wasn't understanding her code. He saw Dee glance over at another corner where some girl was sitting cross legged, waiting out the intruder alert all alone. This wasn’t about him, he decided. She was projecting. 

“What does that mean?” he scoffed, growing anxious again. 

“It means Dennis isn't ever gonna be anybody's settle, their last ditch effort or whatever, for anything. He's not your last chance for a friend or a boyfriend or even family, there's somebody out there for everybody, Mac, but Dennis is not it.” 

Dennis was nobody's go to anything. Dennis could represent all that is selfish, misguided, and hurt within themselves if Mac let himself see that far into it. Instead Mac was left wondering if she was trying to insinuate he would have to settle or if maybe we all do eventually and you should find somebody you actually want to stick it into when you do.

The man over the intercom announced that the intruder alert was over, he interrupted Mac's freight train thoughts barreling out of his skull at a thousand miles per hour. Fuzzy words swam around in his brain making a mess of his already cluttered head. Before he could ask Dee what the hell she was talking about, she’d already gotten up and left. 

Mac just sat there in the corner with his mouth hung open, his eyes searching the library walls for an answer. He didn't find anything except for a scholastic poster with a Hitler mustache drawn in sharpie over one of the models coated in glossy lamination.

When his gaze fell onto the girl in the corner, he told himself Dee was the one with the problem, not himself. 

For the next week or so Mac would over analyze and rethink the word “boyfriend” one too many times. He would hover over his bible for an extra hour before bed just because he thought it might make a difference. Every night he would lay awake, talking to the ceiling, or to God, he didn’t know. He would reassure himself that's not what he wanted, that it was a sin and he would surely go to hell for even thinking of it.  
But if his heart jumped a little in his chest when he thought of the concept of a boyfriend and what that could mean, well that was nobody else’s business but his own.

 

-

There she was again in the cafeteria and there she was again over by the lockers. She was in the courtyard and she was on the sidewalk, sure enough she was even in Dee’s dreams. The girls short brown curls swayed softly in the sleep induced summer wind, there was wind chimes tinkling like fairytale stars in the background, and there was a rose red blush that spread across two small round cheeks. Dee desperately wanted to reach out and touch them with her lips.

In Dee’s dream, the girl wore her glasses that she kept having to push up her nose. The girls baggy clothes hung loose around her wrists, the sleeves of her sweatshirt falling up to her elbows when she beckoned Dee closer. The girl was so much shorter than Dee was, she was rough but somehow still so soft around the edges. She wore her smile like a sheet of armor across the soft round plains of her cheeks soft.

The dream was siphoned out of her head when the bedroom lights turned on, the sound of Dennis yelling for her to get up making her pull the covers up tighter. 

Dennis was quiet driving into school that morning. He didn’t like that Mac was upset with him. He didn’t like that the things in his universe he’d grown so accustom felt so off kilter. He wanted everything to feel exactly as it did before, maybe if it was like that again he’d learn to appreciate feeling bad for no reason instead of having this one big problem he could call an explanation. 

Mac had a girlfriend, or so it seemed when Dennis saw him sitting under the bleachers that morning with someone - a girl someone.

There was this gentle thrum of a guitar coming from the underbelly of the bleachers, calm and genial fingers were strumming across brass strings, filling up the empty static air like a crackle of lightning, the melodious sting of somebody else’s voice slipping through the cracks in Dennis’s bruised heart.

Dennis quickened his stride, a snake toothed malevolent expression peeling across his tepid water features. He stopped and stared at the vision of Mac and some girl sitting there together. She had her legs propped up on his backpack and a joint in her mouth - his joint. Mac had his eyes shut and was was humming along to the vacant tune, something that sounded a lot like that song that played on the car ride over to the fireworks show. 

Dennis didn’t say anything. He didn’t process the sudden image of Mac giving out his things like it didn't mean anything. The whole thing made Dennis feel less god-like. He didn't feel like a superior being in Mac’s pathetic life anymore because couldn't tell him who to hang out with or how to feel when he wasn't around. Mac was no longer his disciple in Dennis’s let down fairytale, the story so warped and distorted, filled with so much so much distrust and disappointment. It was to the point that the message was long lost but here he suddenly feeling so betrayed as Mac was giving loyalty away in the form of cheap weed and acting like it meant absolutely nothing.

Dennis had taken him for granted and so in return Mac had replaced him without any warning or explanation. Just like that there was this stranger sitting in his spot who already had more to offer Mac than Dennis ever did. The honey dripping from each note on the guitar was too sweet on Dennis’s tongue, he had to pull himself together and turn away just to get the taste out of his mouth.

Later on in the bathroom, Dennis washed his mouth out with iron and lead tainted water, spitting his anger and betrayal down a water stained sink. He spent the day alone because what was the point of being around anyone if it wasn’t going to make Mac jealous. After the day had ended Dennis walked down to the bleachers and sat there by himself. He pulled out his textbooks and stared at the print until the pages began to blur. 

“This is fucking stupid,” he muttered, closing the book and packing up his things. “I’m better than this, better than him.”

He took the long way home, made the mistake of walking through Mac’s neighborhood just to get a glimpse of the guy. It’d only been a little more than twenty four hours without seeing him properly and he was already losing his shit. He walked with his head bent down low to the pavement, glancing up to see flashes of grey marked by chain link fences and untrimmed grass, the overcast was spreading like a blight across the opalescent sky. Dennis watched the lights turn on inside Mac’s house just up the street, he imagined the girl he saw him with up in his bedroom, playing her guitar and singing him words that can only be described as heavenly. 

Dennis was beginning to spiral in a sense; something he considered to have control over, the one constant in his life, was gone because he couldn’t seem to get the right words to come out of his mouth -or rather keep his mouth shut instead. 

There’s a long drawn out silence when Dennis stepped through the front door of his own house. It was something that felt like a hault or a hesitance between heated words and vicious syllables. Somebody was listening for his footsteps, waiting to hear whether he’d leave them alone or interrupt the conversation. As he ascended the first couple of steps to his room the sounds of a drug induced slur reached his ears. He closed his eyes and pictured his mother gripping the sides of the counter, trying to steady herself as she reached over towards his red faced father. Frank would grumble something about her being a whore and she’d try and swing the empty of bottle wine at his head. It probably just grazed his scalp when it was sent crashing down onto the hardwood floors, the crimson bleeding onto the marble white counters. 

This place never felt like home, not like it did beneath the bleachers or with his face tilted up towards the stars. In that house it was cold and unforgiving, it was broken and misguided, and everytime he walked up those front steps he was filled with some unrelenting dread curling in the bottom of his stomach. He missed having an escape, that perfect out of an unfortunate situation. Mac was a distraction, he was something to hold onto when things were slipping out of his grasp. It’d only been a day but Dennis already felt like he was falling endlessly, barely hanging on by the frayed strings of his jeans wrapped around a purple finger tip to cut the circulation -control anywhere he could get it.

A couple more days exactly like that one and Dennis felt like he was growing insane. He saw Mac with that girl everyday after school. Dennis would walk to his car and he’d see them heading down the same street Mac and him had walked down that Saturday morning. He never looked to see if they’d turned the corner towards the diner because he didn't think his heart would be able to take that.

Today the girl put her hand on Mac’s shoulder, turning back as she spoke to throw a glance over her shoulder. Dennis’s hand froze on the key in the door of his car, they locked eyes for moment too long until she turned her head back around, those soft brown curls bouncing just below her chin with every move. She was wearing that too big sweatshirt again even though it was almost eighty degrees outside. Mac and Dennis might’ve driven out to the lake that afternoon to cool off, but maybe he was taking his new girlfriend there instead. 

Dennis scowled to himself, climbing into the car and putting the keys in the ignition when his sister made her way out of the building. He could hear the metal of her back brace clamoring together even through the closed doors. Charlie was right behind her with an armful of books and loose papers. He dropped one, quickly bending over to grab it and catch back up with Dee. 

“Charlie and I are staying after,” she said through the window Dennis had cracked just enough to hear her. “We need to study.”

Dennis eyed Charlie up and down with an eyebrow raised in suspicion. “Sure,” he said drawn out and insinuating something that made Dee roll her eyes and scoff. He rolled the window up in front of her scowl, pulling out of the parking lot just fast enough so the wheels would squeal against the pavement. 

“Fucking asshole,” she muttered but did the same examination of Charlie when he’d turned around.

They sat down on the grass, papers and textbooks spread out across the little hill they'd found themselves on. Dee had been attempting to teach Charlie basic algebra, watching as he cocked his head to the side a little bit, scratching the top of his hair and squinting down at the numbers in front of him.

“I’m not gettin’ it Dee,” he said apologetically, handing the crinkled paper over to Dee who could hardly make out whatever Charlie had scrawled across the page.

She sighed, forcefully handing it back to him. “I dunno Charlie, go ask somebody else who's better qualified.” She hasn't meant it to sound so cold and biting, but Charlie seemed so unaffected that she didn’t think to apologize. 

Charlie watched as Dee poured over her chemistry binder, biting the top of her pencil and furrowing her brow when things weren't making sense. 

“I think you're qualified,” he said suddenly, hoping she would look up from her binders. She didn't, she just shook her head and scoffed so he tried again,“You're the smartest person I know, Dee.” 

As he spoke he began to move in closer to her, so close that she could feel his breaths on her arm and his knee pressed against her own. He was saying such good things and he spoke so earnestly that Dee thought if she closed her eyes tight enough she could pretend to enjoy this. Instead when she did, she was met with images of blush painted cheeks and glasses framing a round face. She saw half moon smiles and wild curls dancing across a soft jawline. 

“You're so beautiful Dee.”

She felt worn but gentle hands falling across her cheek, tilting her face closer to his. Her blood ran cold and putrid inside of her veins and instead of butterflies she felt nausea pool in the base of her stomach. Her heart pounded so loudly in her ears she thought it might burst from her chest. Charlie wrapped a steady and careful hand around her wrist and she thought for sure he could feel her pulse frantically calling out for help beneath her skin. She wanted so badly to hear that somebody wanted her, so she let it happen. She would be validated and affirmed by him in return for a just couple of moments alone with her body.

I need to want this, I need to want this, I need to want this, I don't want this- 

Charlie was so close to her now and her dry lips burned against his own as he hovered over her. The pools of sickness became waves inside of her when he leaned in to close the gap, just enough for her to taste something stale like cigarettes and cinnamon gum on his lips.

She was so cold, frozen with her eyes split open, wide and still. The ground began to spin beneath her, the trees blurring into the horizon and then into the pavement below. 

She was supposed to want this, she was supposed to hear him telling her how good she was but instead all she got was that girl whispering something warm and tender out from behind her eyelids. 

“Wait-” she whispered urgently, not realizing how he might not have heard her until she was trying to pull away- “Charlie, please stop.” 

In the time to took him to process her words she was already standing up and out of his arms that were half reaching out to her, the message from his brain had not yet been received by his nerve endings as his hands hung in mid air. 

She stumbled backwards with her hand pressed tightly to her mouth while she tried not to gag. Dee’s hand abandoned her mouth as reflects took hold, it forced her back down to the ground with her head bent into the bushes, throwing up all of that God given suppression and denial until there was nothing left.

Her body, her rules, until she doesn't even play fair anymore. 

Charlie got up off the ground and hurried over to help, to somehow undo whatever he had done. 

“Dee I'm so sorry-” he said, placing those gentle hands on her back while she wiped off her mouth with the back of her hand.

She stood up, shaking her head as she tried not to look him in the eyes. She’d embarrassed him, made him look like an asshole, she didn't know. Dee folded her arms across her chest, trying to keep herself together as best she could, to stop herself from imagining Charlie turning away in disgust, yelling something about her being a tease.

Of course he didn't, of course he just stood there trying to put together all the sharp lines and jagged edges that was Deandra Reynolds. She should tell him it's not worth it. She wasn't one to keep her thoughts a secret but this something she swore she would.

“Dee what did I do?” he asked, so genuine and heartfelt it made her want drop her arms and cry.

“Nothing Charlie,” she answered hoarsely with a wavering jaw and unstable syllables. They stood there for a minute while she saw how he really did blame himself for every single thing that had just happened.

“You didn't do anything.”

“Then what?” he asked, fed up with guessing. “If it's not some personal thing with me, then what?

“You’re really gonna make me say it?” she asked him, clenching her jaw tightly and staring off into the empty space by Charlie's head. 

“I'd rather you did, yeah.” 

“I don't like you.” 

There. Flat and monotonous. So harsh it burned all the way down Charlie's throat.

“What?” he asked, swallowing thick lumps that stuck to the roof of his mouth.

“I don't like you, or Bill Ponderosa, or even Brad Pitt. Charlie, I don't like boys.” 

“Huh,” was all he said, stepping back and scratching the patches of hair that grew along his jawline. 

“Or maybe I do,” she said again, shaking her head, she doesn't know. 

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” 

It was too quiet and Charlie didn't know how to handle it. So he said, “I’m sorry,” while Dee whispered something like, “Me too.”

It felt normal to say it, like she should've probably told Charlie that the first time they'd hung out or the times when she’d felt like she was leading him on.

“You wanna get some soda or something then?” 

“Sure.”

On the walk over Dee apologized for puking and Charlie said he didn't mind, that he was just happy he didn't have bad breath or something. 

He was too good. He wasn't Dennis, or Mac, or like any other person she'd ever known. He was Charlie Kelly and he was maybe Dee’s only true friend in the whole entire world. 

-

The girl's name was June. Mac told her that he thought June sounded dumb though she didn't agree, just fired back that his name was equally if not more so ridiculous. He shouldn't be one to talk.

He shouldn't but he did, a lot. They talked under the bleachers and under the fire escape at school. He even invited her over once so she could smoke the last of his joints and maybe teach him how to play guitar like she did. He didn't get very far but it was fun nonetheless.

He soon forgot what it sounded like to say Dennis’s name outloud but one time he did out by the train yard. It was bitter and sharp and he felt a twist in his gut when he said it. Dennis, Dennis, Dennis, Dennis. June made him forget who he was until today.

“He was a friend,” Mac explained. They were discussing cut ties and old memories. “Not a very good one, but he was there.” 

“That's a lot of people's issue,” June explained There was a certain rasp to her voice that couldn't have been from the joints she was smoking, it was this natural roughness about her. “Some people're drawn to toxic behavior, can be hard to let go of. Good for you Mac,” she commended.

Mac knew this was the girl he was supposed to fall in love with. Smart, funny, beautiful without being conventional -the total package if not the whole delivery. Sometimes Mac could hardly believe she was real.

“I don't get many friends,” she said, stuffing her hands deep in the pockets of her sweatshirt while she walked along the metal rails of the train tracks. They were iron veins running through the open seams of the city, she once told Mac that she wanted to cut into every single one of them someday.

“That's why you don't get hurt,” Mac offered, never quite reaching whatever metaphysical level she was bordering on.

“No, not quite. I hurt plenty I just keep myself guarded. I'll be keeping secrets even when I'm buried six feet under the fifty thread count sheet of a death bed, you know.” She spit at the ground, scuffing at the dirt with the toe of her boot. Mac just nodded his head, playing along like he understood. 

“You have a big heart Mac, too big I think.”

“Mm,” 

“You think I'm wrong?”

Mac shrugged, kicking at small rocks in his path. “I guess you have a point. Wish I was more like you though. Wish I was like, tougher and stronger.” 

June chuckled beside him. “But you're not me, and I am not who you think I am.” She tapped her finger against her temple and waved her hands in front of her face to imitate curtains being drawn back. She laughed with him, shaking her head and sighing, “You shouldn't assume things about people, Mac.”

“Guess so.” 

“Cause nobody's who they say they are. You gotta trust that they're alright underneath all that fake.”

Was Dennis good underneath all the things that made him so awful? Mac honestly didn’t know. He couldn’t see anything alluding to to a confection of gold inside his black coal heart. 

June wasn’t like that at all, there were good things that shone clean cut and brilliant just above her surface, so evident even people like Mac could see it. June was so smart, and Mac knew this wasn't just an assumption. She was smart even though you wouldn’t think that if you'd never met her. He figured maybe she liked it better that way.  
Mac found the pressure to do something, to say anything to rise to her standard was immense. Sometimes Mac wished the silence could feel like it did with Dennis, easy and comfortable. It most likely felt that way because Mac knew Dennis never expected much from him in the first place. With Dennis there was no pressure to better himself, no willingness to try and balance on the crest of his talent and capability. He was allowed to just exist exactly as he was, never growing and never, ever changing.  
.  
In his own screwed and twisted up way, Dennis accepted Mac all the way to his barest bones, to the ugliest parts of his body and mind. He didn't push Mac if he was perfectly comfortable sitting on the crumbling ledge. He didn't tell him to jump or run to safety, just let him sit quietly and most of the time Mac was grateful for it.

With June there was always this unattainable goal settled in the air around them, the knowledge that she expected something more from Mac, even if he didn't know what that was. He got the feeling she wanted that something more today.

Mac figured everybody would always just expect him to give things he didn't have, including June, and he would be left coming up empty handed everytime. 

Everybody would always want something except for Dennis who never asked for anything in the first place.

Swept up in his internal panic, Mac stopped in his tracks, waiting for June to do the same. She looked up at him, patiently waiting for him to speak. She stretched out her invisible hands to coax the words he didn't want to speak out from his closed up throat.

“I don't want to kiss you,” Mac blurted. He wasn't even sure that's what she wanted, it just felt like something he should say, just to clear the air.

June was the girl he was supposed to fall in love with and yet he was coming up short once again. She was pretty and kind and smart, and Mac was not. She wanted to kiss him and hold his hand, and Mac did not.

Mac’s gaze snapped up from the dirt when he heard her sharp laughter rising from her chest. She stumbled, grabbing her stomach with both hands and laughing until tears rolled down her cheeks. 

“Oh Mac,” she sighed, regaining her composure. “I don't want that from you.” 

“What, why not?” Mac said, borderline offended. He could not want her, but in order for this work she had to want him enough for the both of them. 

“What do you mean why not? You're the one who said-” 

Mac stopped her, not wanting to hear it. “I know what I said, but you want me, secretly. Or maybe it's not that but it's gotta be something so what is it?” 

She sighed knowing there was something more to his words, “Friends don't take things from each other all the time Mac, doesn't have to work that way.” She began to walk again as they spoke, eyes turned away from each other but their ears spread open wide. “I know you're used to it but I don't want anything-” 

“No,” he stopped her again and she rolled her eyes, growing tired of his insecurities bubbling over and making a mess of an otherwise good day. “It’s something. You want me to be better or be more, I dunno what, but I do know that I don't have it, whatever you're looking for I just can't give it to you.”

Mac was tired of himself by now too. He was showing too much of himself, saying too many things that he'd rather keep locked inside his one hundred proof heart. The organ was bruised and scarred up from the jagged edges of his ribcage but he couldn't seem to stop breaking pieces off to wield as a makeshift weapon. He was guarding himself when he didn't need to, leaving him defenseless when it finally mattered.

“Did you even listen to me? You're skull must be ten inches thick Mac, I swear, I’m not gonna repeat myself, you’ve gotta stop assuming you know everything about everyone.”

“But-”

“Please let me finish.”

“Okay.” He shut his mouth up tight and prayed that she knew what he was going to say anyways.

“You gotta know yourself first. You gotta know who you are and that you don't have to try and live up to anyone except that self. There's nobody who's gonna tear you apart more than those feelings you have in that too big heart of yours Mac. Not your friend, not me, not your dad or your mom. You are your biggest adversary here, and whatever it is you think I want from you, is a part of your own self deluded cocktail of a conflict you have going on.” 

Mac felt himself turn cold beneath her words. He stopped trying to fight and tried to think about it, like really really think about it, taking her words and grabbing onto them with eight white knuckles. 

“And I'm not saying you should stop feeling, that's what makes us human.” She squeezed his arm as if to say, this is you, a blood filled being who's here with a thundering heartbeat and a working set of lungs. You are alive. “I'm saying you need to stop giving them so much control over you. You don't wanna kiss me that's fine, I'm not gonna make you, I don't want to. But if you wanna sit here and think that's your only issue, that it's not part of a bigger problem, that's up to you, it's not on me. How you deal with this is your choice. It's always been your choice.” 

It's always been your choice, Mac repeated to himself. She told him all of that instead of chalking it up to him being insecure. She showed him that he had a choice, a whole cloud of thoughts to pull apart and dissect while he fell asleep that night. He needed to decide whether a happy ending was something he was worthy of. 

June was somebody who could know Mac more deeply than anybody on this planet if given the chance. If Mac could just believe for one second that he deserved somebody like that, his life could he so good.

Mac thought he'd made up his mind until he heard a rock skittering across the grime covered panes of his window. It took two more rocks to get him out of bed and one more to make him open the window.  
When he heaved the splintered wooden frame up and locked it in place he looked down to see Dennis standing in his front yard. 

The crickets hidden in the grass and in the bushes filled his ears. They hadn't yet disappeared with the warm weather and right now their rhythmic chirps made the silence fell a little less confrontational. 

“What are you doing?” Mac asked, voice hushed and low. 

The sight of Dennis right then was something that burned it's way deep into Mac’s brain. He was red eyed and sniveling, all hunched into himself and pathetic looking. Dennis tossed his hands in the air, the too big sleeves of his button down falling past his elbows as he does so. His laugh is accompanied by the sting of a voice crack as he let's his hands fall heavily back down by his sides. He was surrendering.

“Mac, I'm sorry,” Dennis called out, looking him in the eyes and trying to look unafraid.

It seemed a half felt apology and a sad, glassy eyed stare was all it took for Mac to finally make his decision.


	10. God Loves You and So Did Janis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang hangs out in Charlie's basement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know Dennis is more a fan of the synthesizer, 80s glam music, but Pat Benatar is a breath away from that and I really love her. Sorry for forcing my music taste on you all ahaha, but I hope you think it fits the story well :) 
> 
>  
> 
> If anyone wants to know, the song Dennis was sining is called "Maybe" by Janis Joplin, she holds a very special place in my heart and this song reminded me of Mac and Dennis in a way. Hope somebody else out there likes her too.
> 
> As always please feel free to leave comments, I love hearing what you have to say! Enjoy :)

Mac ran down the stairs so fast, skipping steps and using the railing to balance himself as he hopped over it to get to the front door. Everything was moving so fast and things he’d only thought about alone in the dark were now uncovered by Dennis who was standing in his front yard painted in the low glow of the street lights.

There were things he’d wanted to say to Dennis since they day he told him to bring weed instead of cigarettes, since he started demanding things that Mac could finally offer, and never anything more. Mac had all these things trapped in his throat that got lodged in there somewhere between the time he fell asleep in the passenger seat of Dennis' car and when he left Mac all alone on the football field a few weeks back.

Now there he was, washed out and broken up, asking for Mac to forgive him again. Mac looked him up and down, his chest heaving with the broken bits rattling around in his ribcage. Dennis met Mac's gaze with soft, glossy red eyes. They stood there wondering what the next move should be, trying to interpret the tense and high strung aura that sweltered around Mac's furrowed brow and heavy heart.

Dennis heard Mac sigh, watched as his shoulders collapsed. Mac began to walk over to him and Dennis didn't have time to step back and his heart soon joined the chorus of pumping blood that pulsated frantically in the veins under his skin. Mac was standing right there so Dennis just closed his eyes. He found it so easy to submit to this, to just accept that Mac was going to kiss him, he was going put his lips on his and whisper his forgiveness out from under his tongue. He would do that and Dennis would let him because what are friends for if not to love one another, to give in times when you've taken away? A favor was all it was, an act of goodwill.

And Dennis was not gay but he didn't push Mac away when he could feel his sporadic breaths tickle the base of his neck.

Mac felt adrenalin flush across his face. He felt hot, like he’d been boiling in a pot for too long and now he was burnt and stuck to the metallic sides. He walked up to Dennis and breathed that heat onto his skin hoping to scar him just as badly as he’d scarred him.

He watched Dennis close his eyes and the last thing he thought before he heaved a closed fist into his marble carved cheekbones was that he hoped it hurt.

“Ow, fuck,” Dennis spat, stumbling with the force of Mac's fist. Mac cursed under his breath as he grasped at the sore skin with his other hand.

“Shit what was that for man?” Dennis cried, clutching his cheek and wincing when he applied pressure to the tumefying red spot.

“You're a piece of shit Dennis,” Mac hollard, shoving him back a few steps, goading him into fighting back. He needed some kind of physical reaction, words and hands that were strong and sure, he needed something that would hurt him because pain and anger were the only things Mac understood.

Dennis complied. He grabbed the collar of Mac's ripped and torn tee shirt and shoved him into the dirt. He straddled his waist with his thighs, weighing Mac down so he could hit him a few more times. Mac struggled to flip him over and retaliate, grunting and spitting when the hands on his shirt wound their way around his neck, two thumbs pressing purple full moon bruises into the column of his throat.

“Get the fuck off of me-” Dennis choked out, his fists turning into open palms, wanting space and air, tired of breathing in all of Mac's angry exhalations.

Mac was pushed back a few feet away from him, copper fluid comes sputtering out from his lips when he spit onto the ground. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand to see lurid red smeared across his black and blue skin.

He heard a biting laugh coming from lungs behind a bruised ribcage. Dennis stood up, clutching his swollen abdomen with his hands. He offered one out to Mac who took it with reluctance, finding his balance with trembling knees. He joined Dennis in laughter that was a little too rough around the edges, a little too angry and a little too sad to be all that funny anymore. They laughed anyway, their arms looping around the others shoulder to hold each other up right.

“We good?” Dennis asked through his choppy breaths. Mac just shrugged, clasping him on the back just to see him wince.

“Yeah man,” Mac said. “We’re cool.”

He had the feeling that him and Dennis would always be cool. No matter how many times he’d want to punch and hit his pretty face until it was something that resembled a deformity, he would always take him back with open arms. Mac was a fly caught in a web and Dennis was coming back in for seconds.

Dennis leaned in for a second when saying goodbye, patting Mac's cheek in a last minute attempt to touch him and find some semblance of the moments before lips turned into fists.

“Bye,” Dennis said softly.

When he got home that night he couldn’t seem to fall asleep. The burning phantom touch of Mac's hands. Forgiveness embellished with a lopsided grin.

When Dee asked him about his bruises he just laughed at her, told her that he would explain it another time.  
-

“So you're gay?” Charlie asked around his straw. He kept his eyes down at the table, playing with the open sleeves of his jacket.

Dee chuckled at the unabashed question, mostly admired him for it really. She swallowed her sip of soda that looked more like greywater than cola and said, “Yeah, no. I dunno.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I like girls, but I don't want to, or maybe I'm hoping it will change.”

“You know it doesn't, right?”

“It could though.”

Charlie looked up at her, eyes wide and full of sympathy. She wished he would be angry at her, that he would tell her to make up her mind or convince her she really could change.

“It really doesn't, Dee.” He saw how his words glazed over her eyes and made her jaw start to waver. He watched as something like a strong mixture of maternal disappointment and guilt washed over her. He wished there was someway he could make it all go away but he couldn't when he was part of the problem.

“Whatever happens,” he began. “I’ll be around.”

Dee smiled. She felt good and warm and like she could tell Charlie anything. “I like a girl,” she divulged, the corners of her mouth tilting up towards the blush on her cheeks.

“No shit?” Charlie said, scooting closer, his face a light beam of pride and curiosity. “Who is it?”

“June, lives over on thirty second street. She’s so cute, god Charlie I could just talk about her all day long.”

“Have you talked to her?”

Dee shrugged, “A little, she’s friends with Mac now, probably into him most likely.”

“Oh! I know her, yeah no man she’s definitely not into Mac, like at all. I had to hear about it for three hours last night, trust me.”

Dee knew it was a mistake, she knew the sliver of hope snaking its way around her neck was only going to leave a scar but she couldn’t help it. The what if’s carried so much weight and for a minute she caught a glimpse of herself, happy and secure.

“Charlie please don’t be messing with me-”

 

“I swear, hand to God, Dee,” he said, raising an open palm up to the ceiling. “I think you should go for it.”

 

She thought for a moment, the decision weighing heavy on her tongue. It didn’t take long for her to know what she wanted.

“Yeah, I think I will.”

-

It’s been a week since Dennis laid his heart out on Mac’s lawn. Tonight the four of them all sat in Charlie’s basement and it was cold and musty down there. They sat criss cross around a deck of cards that was scattered across the cold concrete, a lost poker face and a stern gaze lock eyes from across the room.

“Charlie if you aren’t going to take this seriously than just stop playing,” Dennis scolded.

Mac sat up straight, swelling with pride at the thought of meeting Dennis' poker playing standards. Mac glanced over at him with a certain heat in his eyes that was put there by hard liquor and empty beer bottles. Dennis returned his stare and smirked at him, trying to bury his expression in his cards that he scanned with a trained eye.

Dee passed around a half empty bottle of vodka to Mac who took it with eager hands that shook the clear liquor around in the glass bottle. He swung his head back and let it slide down his throat. It burned, it was raw and fiery all the way down to his stomach. He wiped his lips and tried to slacken his expression as he passed it to Dennis who tipped it back and drank with ease.

“Jeez, sorry,” Charlie muttered, grabbing the bottle from Dennis and taking a small sip before casting it aside. “I didn't know you’d take this so seriously dickwad.”

Dennis didn't respond, he glared up and Charlie and Dennis who exchanged a look that quickly turned into sputtering laughter. Mac couldn't help but join in.

“Your hand,” Dennis muttered as he motioned to Mac.

The game dragged on until all but Dennis and Dee had folded. There were only a few instances where Mac and Charlie were seriously convinced one might kill the other, but in the end Dennis won and Dee threw her cards to the ground declaring she was dealt a bad hand.

The night began to settle down after all the vodka was gone and they'd played through all the card games, except fifty-two pickup which Mac suggested but Dee protested knowing it'd just be at her expense.

A resolution spilled from Charlie’s old radio stuffed away in the corner. There was one light that hung low to the ceiling, the glow from the flickering bulb casted deep shadows across Mac and Dennis' faces. Dee had gone home sometime around eleven, she had to be up early the next morning, and the sounds of Charlie's labored breathing told them he'd fallen asleep.

“Gimme that,” Dennis spoke quietly as to not wake Charlie up and crawled over Mac to reach the radio.

Mac leaned back, holding his breath and being careful not to accidentally touch Dennis who’s face was only an inch or two away now.

The radio static switched from the heavy bass of a hip hop song to the subtle sounds of a keyboard and a steady drum beat. A bright and hypnotic voice rose from a bed of instruments, the woman's voice like the melodic peal of the bell above the entrance to the diner.

“Who is this?” Mac asked, face turning to look at Dennis who sat on his haunches, head tilted up to the exposed pipes in ceiling and his eyes rolling back through closed lids.  
“It’s Pat Benatar dude,” Dennis answered without looking down. He laughed at Mac's silence, adam's apple bobbing against the thin skin of his neck.

“Oh,” Mac nodded. “She sucks dude,” he added just to get a rise out of him, but it strangely made him laugh even more, soft and low in a way that pulled at the busted chords in Mac’s heart.

Dennis got up on his knees and moved towards a shelf in the corner. It was filled with books, records, and tapes with the film dangling like blank tongues licking the dust off the floor. Dennis pulled a water stained box off of a slanted shelf and dug through it, holding the cassette tapes he found up to the light to check the label. He found one he liked, holding it up to his lips and blowing off the cobwebs that stuck to the plastic. He put it in the tape deck and pressed play, waiting for it to work out the cracks and skips in the film.

The silence coming from the radio amplified other sounds clinging like shadows on the walls of the room; Charlie’s snores and the cars outside driving too fast outside were suddenly much too loud. The sounds buzzed through Mac's heavy skull and filled his ear drums with their weight. He could hear rain pattering against the shingles on the roof and against the glass windows, soft and muted, so faint like it wasn't there at all. Mac wished there was a way to turn it off.

The silence was interrupted by a raspy smoke soaked voice permeating over the stillness in the room. The woman's words smoulder through the speakers and an old blues beat makes long flames curl and lick Mac’s insides. Sparks were flying up into his lungs, and maybe it was the way Dennis was pressed up against him combined with the alcohol swimming in his system, but he’d rather blame it on the carbon dioxide from the songs flame that was making him feel like the room was spinning.

Dennis caught Mac in his peripheral bobbing his head to the slow burn tempo. They sat crowded together on the frayed rug on the basement floor. Mac traced his fingers along the red and brown earthly threads and tried to not watch as Dennis tilted his head back up towards that open pipe ceiling again, breathing in the music as much as his lungs would allow. It felt like a private moment, like he was watching Dennis take his clothes off through an open window.

But Dennis wanted Mac's eyes on him. It was private, but in a private just for him kind of way.

Mac stole another glance, watching as Dennis out stretched his arms so that his fingers brushed against Mac's shoulder. He saw Dennis smile and it was all he could do but stare unabashed as he began to sway back and forth to the rhythm. Dennis was so taken by this woman on the radio and Mac needed to know her name so he could hear these songs and take this moment back again and again and again.

“Who is she?”

“Janis Joplin,” Dennis replied softly, accenting the last part of her name with the pop of his lip. “One of the greatest singers to ever live.”

They sat down there for hours, listening to the voice of a woman who sounded tortured in a way that you could hear her nails digging into Mother Earth's flesh as she clawed her way to whatever her version of happiness was. Dennis told Mac that she died in nineteen seventy of a heroin overdose, she was only twenty seven years old and hadn't had a chance to find what she was looking for yet. It made Mac wonder where they would be at twenty seven.

Dennis leaned back on the palms of his hands and gently swayed his head back and forth, just so it was if he wasn't moving at all. Mac couldn't hear Charlie anymore. He couldn't hear him snoring and he couldn't hear the cars racing by on the rain slick streets. It was just the music and Dennis' soft hums enveloping Mac's whole body. He felt like it's heat could heal wounds and cure sickness or in other words was Holy, imbuing love in the form of an inner-body religious experience.

Mac replicated Dennis' movements just like he had that day in the alley, his unsure and shaking fingers wrapped around a stale cigarette. He was more confident this time with the vodka sitting low in his stomach. Mac felt his eyes close shut, hooded and dazed, creating scenes in his head to go along with the haunting melody from a dead woman.

“I wish I could disappear inside this song,” Dennis whispered and he almost laughed at himself when he heard the statement out loud.

Mac didn't know what to say, didn't know how to fix that or if it was something that needed to be fixed. Janis Joplin carried her heavy heart along with them as she cried out frantic pleas alongside a trumpet. Mac could only hope the person she was singing about got a better ending than her own.

“Come back, to me-” Dennis sang low and sonorous. “Maybe, let me help you show me how.”

Mac whispered a prayer under his breath when he leaned in a little closer. He felt his heart beat a little faster against his broken shell rib cage, each time the muscle contracted it dug itself a little deeper into the jagged bones there.

They were so close together now, all Mac had to do was turn his head and he would be breathing in Dennis’ words. He took a breath of air and didn't wince when his ribcage protested, but when he turned his head panicked and immediately looked back again when Dennis unexpectedly met his stare. Mac’s heart was caught his his throat and his blood was hot when he felt long and assured fingers sliding underneath his chin.

_Matthew 6:9-6:13_   
_Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name._

Those aristocratic fingers tilt his face up to a noble jawline set in hard stone. Dennis held onto him with boldness and confidence, he kept Mac in place with that firm grip on his chin. He told Mac, “do not move.”

_Thy kingdom come. You're will be done, on earth as it is on heaven._

Mac listened. He did not pull away. He shook beneath Dennis' fingers and the radio was a faint whisper in his ears. Mac stared into Dennis' dark eyes, letting himself fall deep into the hollow and blown out pupils, eyes dilated in the dark of the basement.

_Give us this our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us._

Dennis hovered above Mac's dry lips. Mac wanted to lick them but he was terrified to move. He was screaming at Dennis from inside his locked heart that was too cowardly to do anything else but quicken his pulse. But Mac didn't push him away, instead he pretended like he didn’t know what Dennis was doing. Dennis was the one who needed forgiveness, not him, he didn't know any better.

The purple and blue rose petals that bloomed across Dennis’ cheekbones proved otherwise.

_Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever._

His lips were warm and Mac's brain was fuzzy. Dennis' hand on his chin pulled him closer, in the dim light Mac could see there were bruises on his knuckles too as he drew him all the way in. Mac could taste the vodka on his tongue. Dennis shifted, moving so he could take Mac in with both hands wandering his body that was on fire. Mac could feel flames like hellfire licking at the skin Dennis exposed while he ran his hands across the notches in Mac's spine. He muttered something against his lips while fingers ran across his broken and burning ribs. Mac was momentarily convinced that Dennis would heal him.

Dennis was a God. Mac's God taught him, lead us not into temptation, but Dennis dragged him into it on his hands and knees -he was a head on collision into the gates of hell.

_Amen._

Mac couldn't breathe. Dennis held him so tightly and there was no room for air. He needed to feel the cold. He needed to feel contrition and newness again. Dennis was hot hot hot fire engulfing him bone deep with no remorse. The rain outside cried with the woman on the radio and Mac pulled away from Dennis and his cherry red lips.

Dennis’ hand was back on Mac's chin, a thumb sweeping under it, telling him it's alright to come back in. Mac could see more bruises that he didn't notice before on Dennis’ throat in the shape of his own thumbs.

Mac didn't listen to him this time. He ran out into the rain with his hands on his knees, heaving cold air into his brandished lungs.

Dennis did not follow him.


End file.
